Soldiers only just started digging through the rubble on this street in the hard-hit city of Dujiangyan on May 14. Debris from at least five apartment blocks is piled four stories high. Shops and a wholesale market have been crushed. Overall, more than 25,000 people are believed to be still trapped in the rubble left by the 7.9 quake.
Here, eight bodies are pulled out in less than an hour. In most cities scenes like this would rank as a major catastrophe, but it’s merely one of a dozen big rescue sites in Dujiangyan, and it’s lower priority than some. Across the city, most buildings look intact at first glance, but large cracks spidering across walls have driven most locals to sleep on the street. They’re without electricity, dependent on fire trucks for water and have little chance of using their homes anytime soon.
The government has done its utmost to mobilize its military–one soldier based in the capital of Chengdu said his unit was on the road 10 minutes after the quake hit–but they can barely cope. Gao asked for help pull out his dead wife, but soldiers told him they had to find survivors first.
Many people have responded by volunteering. Outside the collapsed market, a chain of young adults hold hands Woodstock-style to keep back distressed spectators; they wear yellow ribbons tied round their wrists. Many are college students. The Young Communist League (YCL) is marshaling the volunteers at rescue scenes, but few are members. It’s merely that the league provides an officially approved national framework. “We’re all trying our best to help. Of course the government can call up more people, but we don’t need that call, we came ourselves,” says Mu Jin, 21, an economics student taking part in the YCL’s human chain.
Instead of emptying the roads, the quake has made the short highway from Sichuan’s provincial capital, to Dujiangyan far more crowded as usual, according to our driver. Car owners are volunteering to take the injured to hospitals in Chengdu.
Round the corner from the collapsed market, volunteer construction workers from big state companies are putting up awnings stretching for more than a mile to shelter those who have lost their homes. It is a drop in the ocean. Some locals complained that they could help set up shelters to dig for survivors but have not been asked. At Juyuan Middle School, Duo Yongjun tells how parents were the first rescuers. “More people means the kids can be dug out faster no matter if they’re alive or dead,” he complains. He has lost his son and his niece.
In the face of tragedy, people are openly using traditional incense- and money-burning rituals to find a way to express respect for the dead. China’s modernizing zeal has failed to offer an alternative for such times. “This person has just died. You’re saying farewell, you’re sending them off”, explains one man who is lighting paper at the feet of a corpse.
Another mourner let off firecrackers, a traditional way to prevent evil spirits gathering round a corpse. As the rest of us jumped back, Gao leaned forward, protectively shielding his wife’s cloth-bound head from the sparks.
