NPR China Earthquake Slideshow

Here's an overview of our coverage of the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Hear audio and see pictures by NPR hosts, reporters and producers:

A look back at NPR coverage of the May 12, 2008 earthquake.

Photos by NPR staff

 

--Andrea Hsu

4:29 PM ET | 06-19-2008 | permalink

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Controversy and Charity

After ten days of working with the All Things Considered Chengdu crew, I'm back in Beijing.

People's lives outside of the epicenter are gradually getting back to normal. Although survivors' pictures are still rolling across the TV screen, entertainment programs are back on. But people seem as enthusiastic about donating to the relief effort as ever, and there's a huge online controversy related to it going on in right now.

It began when the Vanke Company, China's top real estate company (with revenues of 35.5 billion RMB (about $5 billion), donated two million RMB (about $290 thousand) on the day of the disaster. That sum didn't place Vanke among the largest corporate contributors to the relief effort, and thus began criticism from online observers.

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12:00 PM ET | 06- 5-2008 | permalink

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Injured Children's Emotional Trauma

Wang Sifang, 12, lost 18 classmates in the May 12th earthquake.

Photo by Xiaoyu Xie.

Earlier this week, I visited a major Sichuan hospital.

There I met a few quake survivors, all of them young and in rough shape physically and especially emotionally.

One of them was Wang Sifang. He's a twelve-year-old boy from Shifang Jiandi Zhongxin Elementary School who survived the collapse of his school. Of fifty-three students in his sixth grade class, eighteen were crushed to death. Wang suffers from a broken leg and multiple fractures.

His father told me the boy lost his best friend, and now behaves strangely.

"He gets very agitated and upset when he is hurting from his wound." his dad told me. "Whenever there's an aftershock, he cries and shakes and keeps saying that he doesn't want to stay in the hospital and wants to go home."

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12:00 PM ET | 06- 4-2008 | permalink

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Chengdu: One Heckuva Job

Rivers with tree-lined pathways wind through Chengdu.

Photo by Art Silverman, NPR

Chengdu is not the city I came to a month ago. The city I entered May 2 looked vast, dirty and ugly. I now find it brightly colored, sprinkled with parks and people I enjoy seeing everyday

Also, I'm no longer covering Chengdu, I am experiencing it. And that makes a huge difference. I am moving slower, looking not for news, but for people.

My original plan was to finish up here when the work ended and get out to the glorious mountain, deserts and lakes I have come to love through movies such as "Hero," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and "House of Flying Daggers."

Instead, I stayed in this Chinese New Orleans. Here's why I say that:

- Sichuan is "different' from the rest of modern China.

- People proudly admit they are very laidback here.

- The food is spicy and people like to party and drink.

- The dialect is distinct and sometimes hard to understand to people from the rest of the country.

Continue reading "Chengdu: One Heckuva Job" »

12:00 PM ET | 06- 3-2008 | permalink

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