Six months on, more time, efforts still needed to tackle trauma of quake survivors
2008-11-10 09:53:23 GMT2008-11-10 17:53:23 (Beijing Time)
Xinhua English
by Xinhua writers Wu Chen, Ji Shaoting
CHENGDU, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Wen Jia rushed out of the dormitory building with a swarm of screaming schoolmates when a 4.0-magnitude aftershock hit Dujiangyan Thursday evening. With the devastating Sichuan quake only six months back, she recalled the horrible moment on May 12 when she was buried by a collapsed school building.
The 15-year-old said everything that occurred during the quake, which killed nearly 70,000 people, including 51 of her classmates in Juyuan Middle School, flashed through her mind although she had already experienced other aftershocks.
"I thought I wouldn't be afraid any more, but it's the first time I have experienced an aftershock in the same environment (in the school) as at that time," she said.
Wen had been buried under the ruins for nearly six hours. Fortunately, she suffered only slight head and leg injuries and soon recovered. Since then, however, she had been haunted by the scene of her desk mate being hit by the collapsed classroom ceiling and falling down immediately.
She said she also frequently recalled the dead, cold feet of two classmates who were trapped with her in a narrow space under debris.
"We kept encouraging each other, but they gradually lost their breath before the rescuers came," she said.
Feng Kai, principal of the Dujiangyan High School, where Wen Jia continued her education after finishing junior school in Juyuan, said the freshmen from Juyuan Middle School were more sensitive to the aftershock than other students who didn't really experience the quake.
The Chinese government and many non-governmental organizations sent psychological experts to the quake zone to counsel some survivors, which Wen Jia also benefited from. However, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder which comes after exposure to terrifying events, could come on long after the quake. Experts warn that it will still take time for the likes of Wen and her schoolmates to come to terms with their ordeal.
"They stayed out of the building until late into the night. We could tell that they lacked the sense of safety," Feng said, adding that they need more help to overcome the trauma.
The quake has claimed lives besides the killing physically.
Luo Shibin, 45, a government official responsible for relocating the quake survivors in Pingwu County, Mianyang City, collapsed after working more than 12 hours on Oct. 24. Gao Xueyuanwas in Luo's team which was responsible for the relocation of more than 1,200 quake-affected households, as well as improving local infrastructure, and had just had supper with Luo.
Gao said they hadn't taken any weekends off since May 12 and the last time he took his four-and half year old son out to play was in April.
"We were very tired, but we had no other choice," he said.
What gave him a little comfort was that local government immediately ordered all officials to take compulsory vacations in the last two months of this year and to take weekends off, instead of making Luo a role model and asking other officials to learn from him as it used to, Gao said.
"I believe Luo also wanted us to take a good rest," he said.
Gao took his wife and son Gao Wentao to play in the park near to their apartment Saturday. When playing within a toy plane, Gao Wentao asked his father to take him to a real plane.
"Actually I had planned for a long time to take him to Beijing during the National Day holiday in October," Gao said. However, the quake, which directly affected nearly 50 million people in Sichuan and nearby provinces, disturbed everything.
Although Gao can have a week off before the end of this year, he still cannot make the trip then as he was not allowed to leave the county, according to his orders.
"It may take more than one year to realize my son's dream," he said.
Tang Chengyi has a dream to realize at the moment.
Living in the mountainous area of Pingwu County, Tang had to finish building a temporary wood house to resist the harsh winter, during which the lowest temperature may be under 15 degrees centigrade.
The small mine owner's house and one truck were damaged, and his backbone was hit in the quake. After receiving treatment in Yunnan Province for one month, Tang went back and planned to build a permanent house for his family with the support of the government. The government provided a starting fund of about 20,000 yuan (2,900 U.S. dollars) and a special loan with the highest amount of 50,000 yuan for each household that wanted to build permanent house.
However, his new house, with the first floor just completed, was torn down in one of the aftershocks in August and the original location was deemed unsuitable for construction any more.
Now, he has almost completed the construction of the temporary house, while still waiting for land to build the permanent one.
He said the temporary house would be enough to help them get through this winter, with new quilts and electric blankets distributed by the government.
"I hope we can move into the permanent house as soon as possible," said the 45-year-old. However, he said it wouldn't be finished until the end of next year, and it would take five to eight years for him to repay the loan and get everything back to normal.
"Actually I still haven't figured out where to start my new life," he said.
Tian Fugang's life was totally changed by the quake. The 22-year-old former technician, who has been receiving therapy in the rehabilitation center for quake survivors in the West China Hospital, had to make an entirely different plan for his future after he was paralyzed by the disaster.
He even had to learn how to turn himself over in the bed and had to reconsider his relationship with his girlfriend.
"I don't want to be a burden for her. Therefore, if I couldn't rely on myself in the future, I would break up with her," he said.
He now practiced hard to improve his physical ability and hoped to be chosen as a professional disabled athlete one day.
Now, every day, Tian walks with special aid supporting his body for three to four hours, trained on parallel bars for half an hour, rides a bicycle for half an hour and has acupuncture therapy for one hour.
More than 350,000 people were injured in the quake, and among them, some 100,000 were hospitalized. Many of them are in need of rehabilitation like Tian after leaving hospital.
Sichuan has only been able to provide rehabilitation therapy for just 6,000 people. The situation may get worse - the search for injured people who need therapy in remote areas is still underway, according to local health authorities, meaning the total of those in need may continue to rise.
He only cried only two or three times, and that when he had an appendicitis operation just after the operation on his legs.
"I thought 'why do bad things keep happening to me?'. But I have already been the lucky one as I'm still alive," he said.
Wen Jia said she had learned an effective way to overcome her depressions after receiving a lot of psychological counseling.
"The psychological experts told me to think more about the happy time I spent with my classmates instead of the dreadful moment of their deaths," she said.
She also did a lot to help her classmates' parents who forever lost their children in the disaster. Once she heard that a couple wanted to break up because of the unbearable sadness of the loss of their children, which made them quarrel every day, Wen went to talk to them and asked them to move on in their lives and try to leave their pain behind.
And in Thursday's aftershock, although she was pretty scared, Wen organized her roommates to run down the stairs hand in hand and went back to look for former schoolmates from Juyuan Middle School.
"I experienced the quake and survived it. I have to be strong, "she said, with a smile.
However, she said she would never forget her classmates.
"I only hope I won't be afraid again when I recall the scene next time," she said.
(Xinhua reporters Ye Jianping, Jiang Yi in Sichuan Bureau contributed to this story.)
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