To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, we're running a series of features on the quake and the stories of devastation and recovery that followed. As the extent of the disaster unfolded, the one question on the minds of everybody watching from near and afar was, "How do we help?" Volunteers organized collections, fundraising events, trucks of supplies. As the first major widespread disaster to be televised nationally in China, the quake inspired an unprecedented show of donations and volunteering among citizens. In this, our final quake-commemoration post, we share some of the stories of those who, with varying degrees of success, lent their aid.

These stories are all excerpted from CHENGDOO citylife, issue 13 ("Aftermath"), a full PDF of which is available as a free download.

"In the beginning, I did not know it is so serious. On the 13th of May, I woke up and watched TV and realized I had wasted 21 hours to rescue those people"
Heather Zhao, then a nurse at Parkway Health

We Came to Rescue You

Israeli students Eliran Dobzinski and Nisan Hasan heard their compatriots were in trouble and managed to get in and out of the quake zone before the military had closed off the roads. Photo courtesy Dobzinski.

Eliran I carried a bag with two mattresses, two sleeping bags, two tents, a boiler, and cooking stuff, and [instant noodles], a lot, so we were prepared to survive at least a week with two bags. I had these crazy [army] meals that I got from one of my friends. You eat a tablet, two tablets it's like a meal, and we had like 16, 17.

In the night when we slept in the tent, there were aftershocks. And then you know you wake up in the morning, there was an earthquake. We didn't say anything. But we thought about it—there was an earthquake in the evening, and we're gonna climb up there? And then the villagers told us there is no way to get in. So we felt useless—what are we gonna do, we're just gonna sit here all day long; we're not gonna do anything? We're gonna sit here and wait? That sounds stupid. We cannot be there and not do anything. Like what the fuck are we gonna do here? We're gonna stay here a day, two days, we're gonna wait for them for a week?

Nisan When we found the girls, I collapsed 10 minutes before; I just had no power, no energy to continue. But when we saw them, when we saw the girl with the broken jaw and found out she didn't eat or drink we knew we had to get her out, so you forget yourself in a way.

Without the Chinese we wouldn't get the girls out, no way. We had to carry one of them. The [villagers'] houses had just collapsed, and they did everything just to help us. That was amazing. Didn't want money, didn't want anything.

We got to the ambulance, and the girl with the broken jaw just didn't wanna let go of the Chinese guy. They were crying, both of them. I almost cried. She couldn't speak any Chinese, couldn't speak any English, but he helped her so much that she kinda felt attached to him.

She wanted to offer him money, and I told her don't do it because he'll never take it. And she did, he didn't take it, and then she started crying, started crying really hard, and for 10 minutes, the ambulance just waited for them to stop crying.

Eliran One of the girls, her father is a really powerful man. He just called everybody that he knows, and he knows somebody that works with people that works here. So from Israel they got us the cars, and they got a really special driver. They came and picked us up with a Mercedes, a brand new one. It was like an SUV. And this driver was a local guy, so he knew the roads and the shortcuts, he knew everything. The [expressway] was closed. [But] the car had a government card so they can go everywhere they want.

When I ran [to the girls, one] just looked at me. I said, 'Hello,' in Hebrew. 'We came to rescue you!' She couldn't speak for two minutes, and then she was like, 'OK, the insurance sent something,' and I told her, 'I'm sorry but we're not from the government, we're not from the insurance, we're just two students that came. We heard there's people in trouble—we came to rescue you, that's all. We didn't know anything; we're just two students, we want to help. That's all.'

>>Israelis Eliran Dobzinski, then 24, and Nisan Hasan, then 25, were full-time students at Chengdu University when the quake struck. On the evening of May 12, they heard from other Israelis in Chengdu that two compatriots had been traveling in Hongkou when the quake struck. The next morning, Dobzinski, a Krav Maga expert, and Hasan, who was familiar with Hongkou, set out to find the women, whom they had never met. Within 36 hours, they had delivered the women—one of whom had suffered a broken jaw and the other severed fingers—to the hospital in Chengdu. The women returned to Israel shortly thereafter.

Knocking on the Dragon's Gate

Photo by Leo Chen.

"Walked up Yingchang Gou in Pengzhou. Back at base camp. Very organised all things considered. Army here in force now and road being worked on. Not much left standing. Survivors walking wounded or out by air. Awaiting information on where to go next."
via SMS, May 16, 9:47:39

"We are back at our base camp in Longmenshan. Road up Huilong Gou very badly damaged by landslides. Walking difficult and a little dangerous; falling rocks and unstable ground in places. No-one has walked in very far, although helicopters have dropped supplies. Plan to start heading in early tomorrow morning."
via SMS, May 16, 20:19:26

"Back out at base camp – very long day, spent 15 hours walking ~60km and ~1800m of ascent, mostly no path at all in a dense forest, heavy loads and lot of landslides. Rescued 8 people and 1 dog though. Even saw recent panda shit, so at least one wild panda survived! We're coming back to Chengdu tonight ... Very difficult to send messages."
via SMS, May 18, 00:51:53

>>The month before the quake we met and interviewed Matt Ryan of Dragon Expeditions, a small, Chengdu-based outdoor-tours company, and asked why he would want to spend his spare time exploring caves and climbing rocks. The day after the quake, we received a message saying that some of the Dragon Expeditions team was going on a rescue mission with the Chinese Mountain Rescue Team, organized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The team of 22 set off toward Pengzhou aiming for the areas inaccessible to the army.

Working in favor of the team was the fact that this was where Dragon Expeditions regularly operated tours and that Ryan himself has considerable rescue experience, including in Turkey after the 1999, 7.6-magnitude earthquake. "I could hardly sit in Chengdu and watch the pictures knowing I could be helping," said Ryan. "After this quake it was pretty clear we could do something to help, but didn't want to get in the way. This was still a worry even with skills, experience, and government blessing. The military has 100,000+ people mobilized and was clearly doing a very good job."

Having been told by villagers along the way that there were people alive in the mountains with no way out, the team called out for hours until they received a response and were able to make a path to the eight stranded people and dog. "As soon as they realized that there was a route down the mountain they set off running down the path that we had spent the day clearing," Ryan recalled.

Doing Something Useful

Volunteers sorted boxes of supplies that were sent in from all over the country. The Chengdu Bookworm acted as a base for Sichuan Quake Relief, an organization that formed spontaneously and organically by an international group of Chengdu-based volunteers after the earthquake. In the weeks following the quake, SQR organized dozens of trucks filled with food, water, and other essentials, and they continue relief efforts to this day. Photo by Julien Rideller.

"In the first few days after the quake, I was so excited about going out and 'doing something useful': volunteering my time and my sweat, possibly risking my life, not getting any sleep, etc. So I thought that I was the luckiest person in the world when I got the opportunity to go as a Red Cross volunteer into Ground Zero.

"My dad and I arrived at 9 a.m., 16 May. Unfortunately, the Red Cross was not quite as ready as we were, and I think that the whole group left Chengdu around 1 p.m., with a lot of waiting around before and after. Around 4 p.m. we reached a government checkpoint—all non-official vehicles were prohibited from going beyond—where more waiting around ensued while the leaders of our mission re-organized so that we would be allowed through.

"After driving for maybe 10 minutes, the whole caravan of about seven or eight cars and vans pulled over again. This time, the wait was three hours. The aftershocks had not stopped since the quake on the 12th, and conditions in Qingping Village—about 20 km from Hanwang Town and at this point accessible only by foot—were too dangerous for us to continue. So we sat by the side of the road, awaiting orders from Red Cross command.

"Finally, around 8 p.m., it was decided that it was too late for us to actually go into Qingping, so we camped out at a military-supply post. The quake victims, whom we were supposed to help, brought us food! They had so little to give, and yet they were offering it all to us!

"We slept that night in those blue tents emblazoned with the words 'anti-earthquake disaster relief' until 3 a.m., when our tent of all females was woken up and ordered onto the vehicles. Without any explanation, we were whisked out of Hanwang and into Deyang, where we waited for two hours for the drivers to go back and pick up the rest of the stranded quake victims—er, volunteers.

"In the morning, another aftershock caused a landslide in Qingping, burying and killing 200 more. Had we left on time, had organizational and bureaucratic issues not kept us waiting for three hours on the side of the road— might we have been able to help at least some of those 200?"

>>Volunteer Eileen Guo was an international student at Sichuan University last May. After this volunteer attempt, she joined groups of unofficial volunteers making supplies deliveries to various areas. She has since relocated back to the U.S. to start university and, as a result of her volunteer experiences in Sichuan, joined a student group promoting civil-military relations.

A spontaneous group mourning took place at Tianfu Square at 2:28 p.m. on May 12 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake. Photo by Julien Rideller for GoChengdoo.

A group of several hundred mourners gathered at Tianfu Square shortly before 2:28 on Tuesday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake.

At 2:26, one attendee led an impromptu chant of "Sichuan, jiayou, Zhongguo jiayou" ("Sichuan, come on; China, come on!")

Holding small Chinese flags, the crowd pumped their fists in the air as they chanted along.

A middle-aged woman burst into tears, and a dozen photographers immediately swarmed around her.

Photo by Michal Pachniewski for GoChengdoo.

Small clusters of police lined the perimeter of the public square. As the minutes passed, the crowd grew larger, and so did police presence.

At 2:28, a citizen led another chant and song, and then urged the people to stage a march around the square. Hundreds more people joined as the human snake weaved its way around the fountains and sculptures of the plaza, which is positioned about what will be the central subway station when the first line opens up next year.

Carrying small Chinese flags, the mourners made a march around the square chanting slogans of encouragement for Sichuan and China! Photo by Michal Pachniewski for GoChengdoo.

Most participants looked to be middle-class citizens in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. Some carried white flowers. One young man held a large Chinese flag and when the march congregated into a mass, he was lifted up so that he could waved it high above the crowd. A group of Hubei citizens waved a banner to show their solidarity with Sichuan.

When a pair of foreign journalists began to interview attendees, a swarm of photographers and video cameras turned their attention there.

No official announcement had been made of a public mourning period so today's action at Tianfu Square was organized by citizens and grew organically. Last year, the state announced a national three-minute mourning period to take place on May 19, exactly one week after the quake. On that day, Tianfu Square was packed with people, and traffic on the streets halted as drivers blasted their horns and official alarms sounded.

This year's gathering at Tianfu Square was much smaller, and life on the streets carried on as usual. The congregation started to disperse only one hour after it began as uniformed military personnel and armed police started patrolling the square.

With aftershocks still occurring one year after the 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, we bring you a roundup of quake-related news items.

Three-minute national mourning period at Tianfu Guangchang in downtown Chengdu on May 19, 2008, one week after the quake. Photo by Julien Rideller.

On Monday, the state released its official declaration on the quake and disasters in general titled "China's Actions for Disaster Prevention and Reduction."

Economy & Reconstruction
The Telegraph, in a lengthy and relatively thorough report on Sichuan one year after the quake, publishes that upwards of ten million people are still residing in temporary housing—ubiquitous rows of blue and white bungalows, tents, or worse. The Irish Times cites a more conservative number, between 3.5 and 4 million.

In a much more cheerful tone, Xinhua passes on the message from Chengdu's municipal government that 70 percent of the USD1.5 billion that was donated after the earthquake has gone toward "relief and reconstruction work".

In addition to housing construction, several new infrastructure projects have been announced, including an intensive, 50-day, 5,000-worker project to reinforce the Baoji-Chengdu railway, which has been instrumental in transporting supplies to quake-stricken areas as well as a four-lane, 52-kilometer expressway linking Wenchuan and Yinxiu Counties.

Sichuan's tourism industry suffered after the quake, but with initiatives by the provincial government such as the opening of the Donghekou Earthquake Relics Park, the issuing of 20 million Panda Cards and free admission to some of Sichuan's popular tourist spots on May 12, 2009, more travelers were visiting the province. However, the first confirmed case of swine flu on the mainland being discovered in Chengdu might once again alter people's travel plans.

One-Year Anniversary Commemoration
While Beichuan was decimated in the quake and, it has been announced, will be rebuilt in a new location, the ruins were recently opened for four days to former residents who wished to pay their respects to the deceased.

Jackie Chan is following in the footsteps—literally—of fellow Hollywood martial-arts film hero Jet Li, who made a symbolic 5.12-kilometer walk to Wenchuan last Sunday to honor victims of the quake. Chan visited survivors Monday, paying his respects by singing with students from Beichuan Middle School. In related news, Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang, who took home the gold medal at Athens, attended physical-education classes with primary school students in Beichuan.

The Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio has produced the first documentary on the quake. The 96-minute film, "People Go First" (人民至上), will air nationwide on May 12, 2009.

While the state has published 5,335 as the official count of students who died during the quake, it hasn't released names or any other details of the individuals. Countering this vagueness, Beijing-based artist/activist Ai Weiwei is spearheading a project to collect all the names and identifying information of the school children.

Shortly after the quake, the Jianchuan Museum Cluster opened a temporary earthquake museum on its grounds attracting tens of thousands of visitors over the Spring Festival Holidays. On May 12, 2009, it opens a permanent, privately funded RMB25 million museum featuring 8,000 relics recovered from the rubble as well as the legendary pig who was meant to be pork but was adopted by the museum's founder after it survived over a month while trapped under its collapsed pen. Entrance to the museum is free of charge.

Chengdu Quake Anniversary Events

In Chengdu, several events have been lined up to raise awareness and funds for ongoing relief efforts. Last Saturday's half marathon and 10K run attracted 40 runners and raised RMB8,000 to benefit Chengdu Sports Aid projects; later this month, a group of bikers will go the distance (310 kilometers to Wenchuan and back, to be precise) to honor the memory of quake victims.

The Chengdu Bookworm hosts a benefit evening with barbecue and bands on May 12 to mark the one-year anniversary of the quake. All profits from the evening will go toward relief projects. Festivities begin at 6:30 p.m.

Also available at the benefit evening will be "Afterquake," an album produced in conjunction with Sichuan Quake Relief by two musicians who spent time in Sichuan recording with young quake victims. See more about the project by Abigail Washburn and Dave Liang in this Sexy Beijing video.

"Grace – Restoration" (感恩•重建) features work of artists from around the country commemorating the one-year anniversary of the quake. The exhibit is on display at the Sichuan Art Museum (四川美术馆) on Renmin Xi Lu through May 24.

"Unforgettable," an exhibition organized by four local photographers depicts the disaster in large-scale prints. The images are on display in an outdoor (covered) venue and until June 21.

GoChengdoo is currently running a series of one-year anniversary posts to commemorate the quake, and English-language city magazine CHENGDOO citylife has made last May's "Aftermath" issue, a special tribute to the quake, available as a PDF for free download.

Quake-Related Panda News

And finally, some of Sichuan's giant pandas, whose home at the Wolong Nature Reserve was destroyed by the quake, will get a fancy, new RMB1.57 billion home next year. The national treasures, who have been temporarily residing at the Bifengxia base near Ya'an County, have reportedly suffered a decrease in their already notoriously low libido as a result of stress and trauma from the quake and relocation—a story that, of course, headline writers around the world are having a field day with.

"Touch of the Panda" (熊猫回家路) was released in theaters across China last week. The film is notable not only for its panda loving, but also because it is the only feature-length film shot at the Wolong Nature Reserve before it was destroyed. The Disney production took a reported three months to film, and six panda cubs took turns playing the lead role of Pang Pang.

All photos by Leo Chen except where noted.

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, we'll be running a series of features on the quake and the stories of devastation and recovery that followed. In this piece, written shortly after the quake and originally published in CHENGDOO citylife, issue 13 ("Aftermath"), a writer reflects on earthquake experiences, both his own and those of people around him.

Panicked Chengdu residents camped out for weeks, some more than a month, following the Wenchuan quake. A year later, aftershocks still hit the region. Photo by Leo Chen.

Vulnerability: Time, space, and multiple realities

By Forest Venn

"The month after the quake was totally awesome!" said Yin Yimin, a businessman native to Xipu, a west-Chengdu suburb. "We covered our courtyard with four big tarps, and a lot of people came over and partied with us under there. That was totally awesome! Basi de hen!"

Yin was talking about the period in 1976 after the Tangshan quake when many residents of greater Chengdu, shaken from routine by rumors of imminent disaster, slept out in tents for an entire month. He was 6 at the time.

Now his 10-year-old son is having a similar experience. The boy has been spending the nights rough-housing with friends and extended family on factory-wrapped mattresses at his father's furniture warehouse. He lost his personal savings to quake relief, but otherwise has been thrilled with the long vacation.

My wife was on the 10th floor. But I was on the ground in the People's Park, and it has therefore been hard for me to understand the sensation that even now distracts her through the day and keeps her up at night: the sensation of a building going liquid beneath her shoes.

Among our relatives we have only one uncle who was in the disaster zone, in Hongkou, Dujiangyan. If you saw the 10 of us eating together and were told that one had been near the heart of the quake, you would immediately identify him as the one. He is extremely pensive and also somehow giddy. Of course we all wonder what it was like, but he doesn't talk about it. When I said, "So many deaths!," he looked at me like I came from another planet.

"'So many' doesn't touch it."

***

The tremor flattened entire cities. Dujiangyan, pictured here, was the largest city to be badly damaged. Photo by Leo Chen.

We are so far from 1976 that many Chengdu natives no longer remember whether or not they felt the Tangshan quake, nor, if they do remember a slight shaking in that year, are they sure that it was in July from Tangshan rather than in August from Songpan.

We are 20 times farther from Tangshan than from Wenchuan, but according to Chengdu native Jing Lin, a wholesaler at Hehuachi, the panic here after Tangshan far exceeded what we have experienced recently. "… We didn't have any news in '76. Everything we heard came by rumor. Tangshan happened at night, so we assumed ours would happen at night. No one slept at home all month. The rumors said all kinds of things. Some said the earth would open up and swallow tents, so nobody knew where to pitch camp." He slept near Beimen in the back of a Liberation Truck belonging to his father's work unit. He was 11.

This May he has been sleeping with his wife and daughter on a bedroll on the dusty commons of a housing development in Xipu called the International Cosmopolitan.

"This time it's completely different. Although Wenchuan is much closer than Tangshan, this time we see reality on TV. So we aren't scared."

An internal wall was all that was left standing of this building in Dujiangyan after the quake. Photo by Leo Chen.

Two Different Kinds of Truth
An older resident of the International Cosmopolitan, Li Houhua, 80, is more circumspect. He has no plans to move back into his apartment. Does he doubt what he sees on TV? He wouldn't go that far. "Of course the TV is true. It says it's safe to go back inside, and that's the truth. But if I put water in a basin and set it there, I see it sloshing back and forth—well, that's another kind of truth. There are two different kinds!"

There's more to the story, Li suspects. "They say even the Americans can't predict earthquakes. How ridiculous! The Americans put people on the moon. Our own government has put a man into space! How can they not know what's under our feet? Impossible!"

From the second day, I felt that my wife needed advice on how to deal with fear. She was—and still is—keenly aware of the barking of dogs and the movements of roaches. On the fifth night, which we would again spend abroad, I was pleased to see the Pixian TV station announcing an interview with the director of the Mental Health Center of Huaxi Hospital.

A specialist in post-traumatic stress, Dr. Sun was going to discuss the key points to psychological recovery. I shouted at my wife to come watch the interview. "The most important thing," Dr. Sun began, "is to believe the Party, believe the government, believe the media."

Do Not Believe Rumors
At 11 p.m. a van drove through the neighborhood broadcasting, "Do not believe rumors, do not spread rumors." It came through the street again in the morning around 6. My wife woke to an aftershock in the wee hours, but my slumber was so dead-pig-like that the propaganda van was both the last thing I heard before sleep and the first thing I heard after waking.

"If you think about it, we're actually very fortunate," says my uncle, who works at a tent factory in Xindu. "It isn't many people who get to witness in their lifetimes the creation of new mountains and new river courses."

***
Post-disaster rescue work in Mianzhu, one of the towns hit hardest by the quake. Photo by Leo Chen.

The sense of profound vulnerability is an encumbrance to daily life. But it reflects a truth about the dynamic and perhaps illusory nature of our experience which, although it stands at the center of both physics and religion, is extremely difficult to gain an intuition for.

On this subject, A.S. Eddington in 1927 described the difficulty that a physicist faces in the simple act of entering a room:

"I must make sure of landing on a plank traveling at twenty miles a second round the sun – a fraction of a second too early or too late, and the plank would be miles away. I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet head outward into space, and with a wind of aether blowing at no one knows how many miles a second through every interstice of my body. The plank has no solidity of substance. To step on it is like stepping on a swarm of flies. Shall I not slip through? No, if I make the venture one of the flies hits me and gives a boost up again; I fall again and am knocked upwards by another fly; and so on. I may hope that the net result will be that I remain about steady; but if unfortunately I should slip through the floor or be boosted too violently up to the ceiling, the occurrence would be, not a violation of the laws of Nature, but a rare coincidence."

Forest Venn is an American writer who lived in Chengdu for nearly a decade.

The 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck at 2:28 on May 12, 2008 and claimed the lives of nearly 70,000 people and rendered millions more homeless. Tremors were reportedly felt as far away as Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City.

A PDF of CHENGDOO citylife, issue 13 ("Aftermath") can be downloaded in its entirety here.

While events to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake are being announced all over the country, particularly heartfelt action is taking place in Sichuan, the site of the tragedy.

In addition to memorials, mass weddings, construction of museums, and development of tourism sites, four local photographers have come together to create Unforgettable: One Year After, an exhibition that documents the disaster and ensuing trauma and road to recovery.

Photographers Zhu Cheng （朱成）, Qi Hong （齐鸿）, Yang Yong （杨勇）, and Leo Chen （陈新宇）were all armed with cameras in the disaster areas during or immediately after the quake, and the images that they captured in the days and weeks as the scale of the tragedy unfolded will be on display to the public at the 82 Gallery.

The exhibit opens at 2 p.m. on Saturday and runs through June 21.

82 Gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and is located on the second floor of the Chengdu Industrial Civilization Museum at 1 Jianshe Nan Lu (opposite the SM Plaza). 地址：成都工业文明博物馆2楼,捌贰艺术空间 建设南路1号（SM广场对面）
的动力。