Christina Stevens In the Quake Zone

Global News reporter Christina Stevens will be spending 8 Days in China gathering elements for a special series on the relief efforts inside the earthquake zone.
From June 12-20, Christina will be blogging her trip below.
Then watch her reports the week of June 30th on the News Hour at 6.
(You can also watch the reports following the broadcast here).
For more information on how you can donate to the earthquake relief funds click here.
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DAY 9
Shei Fang County
Friday, June 20
It’s our final day here, and to be honest it started off badly. We planned to go to a mountain town deep in Shei Fang County, but that was not going to happen. Instead, we spent endless time waiting and arguing with police at checkpoints. We were singled out and stopped, while other cars zipped past. First we were told it was dangerous, then we were told there were fears of disease; but a farmers market teeming with people and products seemed to rule that out. Eventually we talked our way a short distance into the county, to the town of Lou Shui. Then, with officers at our sides we had a few minutes to look at yet another crumpled heap of concrete, steel and glass. What made this one different is that it was a high school. Next to it, on the street corner, a memorial to students is crowded with mourners. Red candles and incense burn in the midday heat and the grief is tangible. I look up and catch the eye of one of one women. She is weeping so much that tears run down both cheeks and drip off her face. You don’t have to speak a word of her language to understand. I try to convey how sorry I felt, hoping she would somehow understand my gestures. She appeared to, first nodding, then pointing. I turned to see a photo of a teenaged girl, grinning at the camera and holding wreaths of flowers in both hands. This was her daughter. I told her I understood, and that she was very beautiful. The woman turned back to her incense. Her face is an image I will leave with.
Looking back, as we drove though one disaster area after the next day after day, at times the enormity of it was overwhelming. So many people, so many stories of loss, so much sadness. As a journalist, dealing with death was nothing new, but nothing could prepare me for this. Although a certain distance is required to tell the stories (and to cope) I confess, here I cried. At this time the talk is of recovery, there are tributes to heroes, and in some areas the first bricks are being laid as rebuilding begins. Still, nothing, nothing can stop my heart from aching: for the boy who lost his mother, the father who lost his children, and most of all for entire families and villages who have no one left to mourn them or even remember them. The tears come, but I wipe them away. To every survivor I met I added my own encouraging words of hope, but I know it wasn’t enough and I am left feeling helpless. All I can do is let them know people care. People on the other side of the world care, for each and every one of them, individually as human beings. The reason is simple and clear, a mother’s grief is the same the world over, you don’t need words to understand it.

DAY 8
Mian Yang City
Thursday, June 19
Earthquake sunshine. That’s the name the new born wrapped in a blue blanket will take forward from this day on. Zhen Yang’s mother says it means after such a disaster, one day the sky will brighten again. Din Chun Wang says during the quake she was terrified for her life, and for her unborn child. “My parents were with me and we were so scared. The house was shaking but they just talked to me and told me to stay calm,” she says, looking over at Zhen Yang and then her husband. The family survived, but the trauma was almost unbearable. Again Wang says her parents helped her cope, “they told me a lot of stories about other people who have lost family members and comforted me by saying you are still OK and tried to keep me calm to make the baby safer.”
The baby was safe, and Wang now has her glimmer of sunshine. Too few here do. Not far from her hometown, on a mountain road, we see a thin man trudging slowly through the mist and mud. Army trucks splash past, otherwise few vehicles brave the tristed road and threat of fresh landslides. Hong Zhu is 41, but looks much older and appears devoid of hope. We ask where he is going, and find out it is back to his tent a couple of kilometres down the road. He is just coming back from Bechuan, where he went to “have a look”, something he has been doing every couple of days since the quake. Zhu was working in Shanghai at the time and rushed back, only to find out his 17 year old daughter, 11 year old son, mother and sister had all died.
He never really says why he keeps going back to Bechuan, or what he is looking for. Is it for some sign of his home? Something recognizable in the debris? Or is it to be close to his family, to try and understand? Weeks after the earhquake, there is not much to see here, only heavy machinery clearing away any sign of a collapsed school, as well as an excess of mud, rocks and debris. Zhu slowly makes his way up the hill, away from the city, away from life as he knew it, his mourning, barely begun.
Its hard to comprehend, the scope of his loss, and that of thousands upon thousands of families. The very random nature of such a disaster, why is one family spared and another destroyed? There are no answers here, but there is the feeling that they are all in this together.
Back in Mian Yang People’s Hospital the typical celebrations over the birth of a baby boy, are muted and tender. Wang says one day she will do her best to explain the significance of Zhen Yang’s name to him, “I will tell him right after the earthquake you were born. So many people died after the earthquake, but you will be very strong and very brave.” To survive this, it seems to me, you have no other choice.

DAY 7
Mian Yang City
Wednesday, June 18th
The Dead City. That is what locals call where we are headed today. Bechuan, where there was the single largest loss of life in last month’s earthquake, and an estimated five to seven thousand people are still unaccounted for, presumed buried under massive land slides. On the way we go through Mian Yang city, past the stadium that at one point held about sixty thousand residents from Bechuan. About two thousand people are still here, including many elderly and children. They take shelter under a wide outdoor walkway, sleeping on a colourful array of quilts and blankets, startling few possessions tucked alongside. It is at this stadium where we find 14 year old Yi Su. His eyes are serious and he seems weary and old for his age. His story is one a child should never have to tell.
Su was at school when the quake hit, and their teacher rushed them outside. “Once we were out, we looked back and our school building collapsed and we were so scared and it was so dusty,” he recounts through an interpreter. He was immediately worried about his parents and ran the one kilometre home, “and then I met my father and grandma and other relatives and asked about my mom and they said my mom was gone.” His mother had been buried. Su says he misses her terribly, and can still hear her voice, telling him to study hard; so here at a tent school, that’s exactly what he does. Burying his grief in his books, a temporary reprieve from reality, a future to focus on.
His classroom is a non descript blue tent, in a row with dozens of others. Like many of the thousands of tents lining the roads in this area, it was donated by a foreign aid group. Tents purchased by the Canadian red cross are still being trucked to the area. The woman in charge the Sichuan relief project for the Red Cross, is far from her Ontario home, but there is no place Yunhong Xhang would rather be than helping, and work here is far from over. “The need is still massive after an earthquake of such scope, in the village and the prefecture we have visited the past few days we did see the need for water for temporary shelter for hygiene and for non food items,” says Xhang. At this point I realise Canadians have a lot to be proud of, having raised the second most money of any country (after the U.S.) for the Red Cross effort, it is easy to see the donations are making a tangible difference.
The 2500 tents Canadian donations are providing will give shelter to people like Su and his father. People who have lost everything. In Su’s tent classroom, yet another number gives pause. Out of his 17 classmates, three have lost immediate family members. For now, they can’t even go to their home town, its off limits due to the risk of more landslides and disease: it truly is the Dead City. But among the living, there is a strength that is undeniable, a determination not to be beaten, as Su says “I miss my mother so much, but I have my grandma and my father and we will live together as a family, and create happiness.” I leave him then, hoping against hope, that will come true.

DAY 6
Jiu Feng
Tuesday, June 17th
The further we drive, the more disturbing the reality. Today we are headed to Jiu Feng… Or “Nine Mountain” area. We pass house after house, and village after village; all flattened by the earthquake. There is only one reassuring fact about the region of Pengzhou. Out of a population of about 780 000 people, only 940 died. Then I catch myself, shocked to be thinking in terms of “only” 940 people. Nevertheless, it is a figure local officials are proud of, considering the scope of the damage.
The bleak, misty, mountain landscape is interspersed with tent cities. At one, a bright red couch sits outside a row of blue tents, and two women wash clothes in buckets at the side of the road. We pass soldiers, marching in lock step, their shovels leaning against their shoulders where guns are typically held, as they head to the next village to build temporary shelters. Soon we can go no further, in the distance I can see why. The bridge over the river hangs in pieces, its span gone. Instead, we take a hard left over a temporary crossing, to Long Men Shan Zheng. Technically we are not in the village, landslides over the road make it impossible to reach, but we are where the villagers call home. A collection of camouflage tents housing about 800 people, including over 200 children. Holding her 5 month old sister in her arms, 11 year old Yao Xie says she has resumed school for half days. She was in school when the quake hit, killing one student, she says “I started to cry and thought about my grandma.” While we chat there is a jolt. it’s a tiny tremour, enough to make me jump but Xie says, she is not scared anymore, just tired after weeks of living in a tent without electricity. Missing home is a common thing among children we talk to everywhere we go.
We turn back, stopping where the road used to be flat, but where there is now a definite hill, the height of a small car. Further along we come to Xin Xing village. 10 year old Xu Peng Su and his friends come to greet us, offering to show us around. Their school still stands, but just a few hundred metres down the road we come across a collapsed house. “This is where two people were buried and died,” one of the children says matter of factly. Su points down an alley to a collection of tents in a courtyard, then points to himself. That’s where he lives now. Where was his house that he lived in before, I ask. He runs ahead eager to show me, but there is nothing to see. He roams a football field size swath of land marked only by piles of rubble trying to determine exactly where his house stood. Finally he picks a spot, “Right here, right here,” he yells, but there is no discernable marker. Su says he is not scared anymore, “but I know people who passed away and I feel very sad for them. We will overcome the earthquake and rebuild our house again.”
He says he misses the warm feeling of home and is sad. There are signs of recovery here. A crew works to restore electricity, and almost on the very spot Su’s house stood, a single flower blooms. Its pink petals rising out of the debris, refusing to be beaten, echoing the determination of the villagers.

DAY 5
Du Jiang Yan
Monday, June 16th
“Hurry up, hurry up.”
54 year old Sherry Yang bounds ahead, eager to to show us the city of Du Jiang Yan. She is excited but also nervous about what she’ll find. We head for the river and up what used to be a scenic waterside pathway. Instead we find ourselves walking through the middle of people’s makeshift homes. We weave our way around the tables, beds and even the odd TV that make these tarps and tents a fraction more comfortable. Between the tents we come upon what had been these people’s houses. Ancient beams criss cross laneways, and living rooms lay exposed, walls appearing as though they have been peeled back.
Yang confidently leads us through the maze and people greet us good naturedly as we pass through their lives. Some, even looking up from the kitchen table to offer us a bite. They have nothing, and they are offering me their food. These are the people of Du Jiang Yan. I have no time to ponder this as Yang’s lean frame disappears around another corner. Although she is from Toronto her family has a long history here and she is anxious to see if one particular bridge has survived the quake.
From a distance I see what appears to be a magnificent temple, but soon realize it is the imposing roof of the South Bridge. The structure still stands, its wooden planks busy with pedestrians, much as I imagine it would have been when it was built a thousand years ago. But its much more than history that connects Yang to it. “In the middle, the two words were written by my father,” she explains, pointing to two large gold coloured Chinese characters on the roof of the bridge. Her father was an important official here, as well as a talented artist. He died last year at the age of 96. Yang looks again at the painting, stops and dissolves in tears, “It’s still there, that’s why I feel so emotional”.
Over the past few days, Yang has had a lot to absorb. She is a member of the “Sichuan Earthquake Relief Committee”. A Toronto based group which managed to raise half a million dollars for the quake ravaged area. She has had a chance to see exactly how the money is being spent, most of it on clean water. “People get fresh water for drinking and its very important to me that they get that” she explains. She says is proud of Toronto’s efforts to help, and is also proud of this city, “The people here, they are still living, they are still trying to live normally. We can tell they try to help themselves.” She pauses for another moment to collect herself, takes a deep breath, then bounds forward again, eager to show us more.

Day 4
Ju Yuan
Sunday, June 15th
The new normal. That is the only way to describe life in the earthquake zone a month later. Amid tent cities and crumbling buildings its almost business as usual in Shi Hong Bing’s hair salon, located on a main street in Ju Yuan. Stylists are busy cutting, combing and shaving. But there is a crucial difference. The chairs, mirrors and blow dryers have been moved outside; business is taking place under a tarp.
36 year-old Bing says he got back to work one week after the quake hit because its important his staff have jobs, and they are making a difference to those still living in tent cities, by making customers feel better about themselves. “We help as a service industry. We can help ourselves and we can help the people” he explains, adding they were lucky “only the electricity is gone and there is not enough water, but we have a generator now.”
In a town ravaged by the quake, the sad stories far outnumber ones like his. This is the same town where nearly 300 students died when a middle school collapsed. Both army and police officers blocked the access road to the school today, preventing a closer look, and even telling us not to take pictures.
Across town, the name of a local hospital now seems bitterly ironic. Happiness Hospital is anything but. Walls have crumbled, glass shattered and its deserted. Its in an area where it seems as though the earth has picked and chosen its victims. Nearly intact buildings stand next to piles of rubble, a haphazard and meaningless pattern of destruction.
Not far from Ju Yuan is Qingcheng Shan, the mountain site of Sichuan’s oldest Taoist temple, a place of solace and contemplation. It wasn’t spared the earthquake’s rage either. Head of the Lao Jun Ge temple, Master Mingqing Zhang says at first the quake sounded like a big plane roaring over head, but then she realised what was happening and it hit the World Heritage Site hard. An 1800 year old mountain top temple, now lists at a 25 degree angle. Colourful stones from a temple just below lie in piles several feet deep, and a big rift in the earth splits the pathway. That was what we found after a two hour hike into the clouds, to what is considered to be the place where Taoism began. Zhang says she is more concerned about people’s lives than the loss of that kind of history. As for the damage she says “still, compared to the 2000 years of Chinese culture that is a little thing. Everything still continues, we can handle it and we can do much better in the future.”
Zhang says the people are strong, that the earthquake “was like intimidation, or god gave us a test,” a test she believes China, and even the world has passed, “it is like the earthquake made all the Chinese people more like a family. It is like all the people in the world are concerned like a family and concerned about here.”

DAY 3
Jiu Long
Saturday, June 14th
Amid a pile of rubble a skinny woman, wearing a green rain coat suddenly sat down on the soaking ground and began to cry. Inconsolable, she held her head in her hands, then looked up at the sky, hands apart. She had questions no one could answer, but right now her most pressing need was food: not just for her, but for her son and grandchildren.
They haven’t eaten in over 24-hours, 60 year-old Ren Chang Xiu explained through her tears. They have rice and matches but no fire. Pouring rain has left their wood, and now their rice drenched. “Our life is back to over 30 years ago, and even then we had a house” said Xiu’s 44 year old son through a translator. He then paused as he looked over what remained of their home… Scattered logs, smashed bricks and an overturned sofa. The majority of the 200 people in their village face the same reality. Even so, as we watched a neighbour came over with some food and promised to be back the next day, sharing what little he had.
Stories like this can be found throughout the disaster zone, where a strong sense of community is growing. The difficulty is getting her. As China grapples with a new “open” policy, there is resistance. Despite having the proper passes from the Province of Sichuan we were turned away from a check point, informed we now needed local permission as well. We did get through, but it was a scenario we faced again later, so we simply moved on to the next village, that’s where we met Xiu and her family. Frustration turning to sympathy as one of her relatives put it all into perspective, “Going back generations, over several hundred years we have never heard about such a sad story like right now. We have to face it every day”.
In the nearby village of Won Quan, 11 year old Song Pan Xiang was sitting down to lunch. Her extended family meeting together under a makeshift shelter. They live in a tent city across the street. Xiang is spirited and smiling, until asked to recount the day of the earthquake. Her smile vanishes in an instant, replaced with tears. “Whenever I think about it, I am still scared” she tells us. She was on her way to school when the quake hit, “Walls started falling and I wanted my mother” she said. She is still in mourning, having lost some of her classmates that day, but she has her family and they have shelter and food. At this time, in this place, that is all anyone is asking for. It is more than many have.

DAY 2
Chengdu
Friday Night, June 13th
An exhausting, emotional day and to think we aren’t even in the heart of the quake zone yet! The first stop of the day was to a government office to get special passes so we will be able to get past check points in the quake zone. Hopefully it will mean no problems when we head out with the red cross in the morning.
Next up, the West China Hospital, which initially dealt with 2700 quake survivors. Imagine that many people showing up at one hospital in need of help. All but 300 have since been transferred to other provincial hospitals. In the ICU we met 3 year old Xin Yi Liu. Her parents are in a celebratory mood as she has finally spoke for the first time in a month. Her doctor says the trauma of being seriously injured in the quake that devastated her home town had left her literally speechless, until yesterday. That’s when she finally called out “Ma ma”… Bringing a huge smile to her mother’s face. The healing of her physical injuries to her liver and head had already begun, now finally, her emotional recovery was beginning as well.
Children like Yi Liu are the reason Toronto psychiatrist Jianhua Shen and his colleague Joseph Song-Qiu Shan came here. Both have left busy lives in Canada to dedicate their time to the mental well-being of quake survivors. They say in the rush to fix the physical injuries, the mental injuries can be overlooked. Shan says many of the children he has talked to are living in fear. He says his first job has been to simply listen to their stories and let them know people are there for them. Dr. Shen doesn’t hesitate when asked about what child left the greatest impression on him. “One little girl, I asked her what her favourite shape was, she said a circle. I told her that was my favourite shape too, and asked her why she liked it. She said because a circle is round, it has no sides so can’t hurt anyone.” He says that conversation will stay with him forever.
Before Shen and Shan head back to Toronto they are hoping to help local doctors with a long term plan to make ensure the emotional recovery of quake survivors. Shen says the priority is to help the children. He says because many families have only one child, their lives revolve around the child. So if the child is happy, the entire family will be happy.
Meanwhile, it seems Xin Yi is going to be one of the success stories. Her mother recounts how neighbours and strangers leapt in to help, carrying the toddler to the next town by hand, over roads that had been destroyed in the quake. Since then she and her husband have been anxiously watching the little girl’s recovery. Much of their anxiety finally floating away with two simple syllables, “Ma ma.”

DAY 1
Chengdu
Midnight Thurs June 12th (almost Friday morning)
In rapid fire Mandarin our driver describes what the aftershocks this week felt like in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. His hands make a gesture like waves. After 24 hours of travel, we have just landed in this city. Intact, it’s only about two hours drive from areas utterly devastated by the earthquake which struck exactly one month ago. That is where we plan to go tomorrow. I am travelling with two Canadian newspaper journalists, one from an English paper, the other from a Chinese publication in Montreal.
In the small part of Chengdu we have driven through, life appears relatively normal, but I worry about what we will see when we head into the heart of the zone. The official Chinese death toll now stands at 69 146 people, with hundreds of thousands of others injured, and some still listed as missing. The numbers are incomprehensible and aid is just beginning to reach some of the most remote villages. How can any one person make a difference in the face of that? That is what I am hoping to find out. I will be meeting with Ontarians on the ground, who have volunteered their time and risked their lives to help. I will also be able to see where money donated by Canadians to numerous charities is actually being spent, whose lives it is touching.
The first challenge will be getting to those areas. We are told there are numerous checkpoints and some villages are completely prohibited. Our first stop will be a government office in hopes of getting passes allowing us access past the checkpoints. Hopefully, that will happen quickly. I am optimistic, given the reception we have received in Chengdu, where they thank us for coming, pleased that foreign journalists are interested in what is happening to the people of Sichuan now. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
– Christina Stevens