Reporters Give Glimpses of Massive Destruction in China
Reporters in China describe anguish, destruction in hardest-hit areas.
May 13, 2008— -- Today, several news correspondents narrated a grim scene from some of the Chinese cities and townships hit hardest by the magnitude 7.9 quake that devastated the country this Monday.
BBC's Michael Bristow was in Juyuan in Dujiangyan City, a small township located approximate 50 miles from the earthquake's epicenter. The earthquake reduced it to rubble.
"Here in the city center, buildings have collapsed all around me. In the hospital behind me, there are believed to have been 100 people trapped when one wing collapsed. Some of these people have been pulled out. Most of them were dead. There's a palpable sense of fear in the city center. People have been running down the street, dragging their luggage behind them."
Melissa Block of National Public Radio was in Beichuan, another Sichuan county province which was flooded by the detritus of landslides. She described this scene: "Families have pulled mattresses outside. They're sleeping under tarps and umbrellas alongside the road. With aftershocks still rumbling, no one wants to be inside."
Reporting from Mianyang, Sichuan, Wall Street Journal correspondent Shai Oster described a relatively calm scene, where survivors and stragglers huddled together for reassurance and safety: "The roads are lined with people living in tents. Most of them are makeshift tarps that they've sort of thrown together."
Oster met a group of about 10 nursing school students from surrounding villages who had been cut off from their families since the earth quake. "They hadn't eaten a hot meal in -- since the earthquake. They pretty much had no money. They couldn't -- didn't know what to do next. Their school was closed. They couldn't go home. They didn't even know if their homes still existed in most cases. So I bought them some noodles."
"They were pretty grateful for that, " Oster said, recalling the tender moment, "And they offered me an umbrella in exchange. It was quite sweet."
Richard Spencer of the Daily Telegraph was in Chengdu and spent much of the morning at Dujiangyan Middle School, which collapsed, trapping 900 children inside.
