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

Photos by NPR staff

 

--Andrea Hsu

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.

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."

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.

It's my first day out of Southwest China since I landed in Chengdu on March 19. I was woken this morning by the sun, thinking it must be seven or eight in the morning already. And then I remembered: I'm in Beijing. In fact, it was only 5 am (China is all one time zone).

NPR audio engineer Stacey Abbott, right, with NPR Beijing Bureau assistant Joy Ma.

Photo by Brendan Banaszak, NPR

Chengdu was a really hard place to leave. Largely, of course, because there is just so much more to say about the earthquake and its aftermath. Fortunately, we now have Rob Gifford in Sichuan; he'll be in there for the next couple weeks. And he promises to write something for this blog.

But also, it was hard to leave a place that so embraced us as we set out to tell its story. This was true before the earthquake, and became even more so after. Before leaving, I didn't get a chance to see and thank all of the people who helped make our coverage possible. Trying to list them here would take pages and pages.

Our team in Chengdu included, from left, pianist and Northampton, Mass. listener, Xiaoyu Xie, originally from Chengdu; Yadi Zhong, known to us as Rebecca, who teaches English in Chengdu and helped us arrange interviews; and interpreter Philip He.

Photos by Art Silverman, Brendan Banaszak, NPR

Chen Yuqiu, 14, recovering in a Sichuan hospital.

Photo by Louisa Lim, NPR

These two young girls may have been ordinary students, but during the earthquake they behaved in a way that was anything but ordinary. It was a Monday afternoon, two minutes before geology class was due to start, and Chen Yuqiu was handing out math papers as the other students were looking at charts and graphics.

Then the room started to shake.

As they saw other children running, they also began to flee their classroom. Chen Yuqiu explains what she remembered happening next.

All Things Considered host Robert Siegel being sheltered from the sun by farmers in Red Flag village.

Photo by Christopher Turpin, NPR

One moment from our time reporting here in China that lingers with me. It occurred in the magnificently named village of Red Flag.

Robert Siegel, Art Silverman, along with our loyal NPR listener turned interpreter, Xiaoyu Xie, had visited this picturesque hamlet a couple of days earlier, just after the May 12th earthquake. They'd discovered a place where no relief aid had yet arrived.

They decided to return to see if things were any better.

A Gift of Shade

We arrived unannounced in the heat of a blazing day. As I was taking pictures, I realized one of the village women was at my side. She stood close and sheltered me from the sun with her umbrella. As if on cue, other villagers came out of their makeshift tents to shade Robert and Xiaoyu.

First under the spotlight was basketball star Yao Ming. Although he was quick to make a public appeal for aid, his initial donation of less than $73,000 US was derided by bloggers such as the unusually-named "fish is crazy about balls!"

"When Yao Ming injured his foot, every basketball fan in the whole country worried about him....But this time our country suffers through such a catastrophe, our sporting icon made only a courtesy donation of less than $73,000 US... Yao Ming, this time you let us down."

Photo by Brendan Banaszak, NPR

On each side of the main doors stands a mysterious looking, egg-shaped object mounted on a pedestal. The metal egg is about two feet high. Attached to it are eight ornate metal dragons spaced equally around the circumference. The dragons point toward the floor. Each has a little ball clenched in its mouth. Beneath each dragon sits a copper toad with its mouth wide open as if in mid-croak. At first glance, the objects seem to be a slightly kitschy attempt to give a very western looking hotel lobby a taste of the Orient. In actuality, they once served a slightly more relevant purpose.

As almost every Chinese school child can tell you, they are models of Didong Yi, the world's first earthquake detection device.

Bursts of color at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

Photo by Melissa Block, NPR

It's been nine days now since the earthquake rattled us here in Chengdu and caused such terrible devastation close by. The sounds and images collected over these days are haunting.

So, what a rare pleasure to go back today to a green oasis in the middle of this gritty, gray city: the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The air was fresh and moist. Egrets squawked noisily as they nested overhead. Lush beds of bright flowers lined the paths. The bustle of the city seemed very far away, even though it's right outside the gate.

The panda base here in Chengdu is home to 48 giant pandas. There are babies born last year, still drinking formula from bottles.

There are sub-adults, under five years old, who haven't yet reached sexual maturity. And then there are the moms and dads.

We found one of the adult female pandas, 9-year-old Qi Zhen, relaxing in a pool of water in her outdoor enclosure. She was sitting up, slumped over her paunchy belly, looking like a lazy matron dozing off in the tub. Then, as we watched, she started lifting her feet out of the water, rotating them in small splashy circles, in what could pass for panda water aerobics. Qi Zhen was putting on quite an impressive show, so out came my camera, set to the video function:

Video by Melissa Block, NPR

Rumors of further seismic acivity sent Chengdu citizens to the streets to sleep..

Photo by Louisa Lim, NPR

When I set out to interview panicky people sleeping outside, little did I imagine that I myself would become one of them. In fact, I'd confidently predicted that I'd be back at the hotel within an hour. But that was not how things turned out. I'd taken a taxi to a place where many people were still sleeping outside in tents and cars, a week after the shock. When I first arrived, it seemed this constituted only a tiny minority of people, generally the elderly or the very nervous. But as I was interviewing, suddenly a massive influx of people came running to the square, quilts and tents under their arms, jostling to commandeer a space of their own. In the space of about five minutes, the roads were suddenly packed with cars, all heading in the same direction: out of the city.

Villagers take effort to shade NPR's Robert Siegel and Xiaoyu Xie even though it is they who have been devastated by an earthquake.

Photo by Chris Turpin, NPR

The earthquake destroyed most houses in Red Flag village. On our first visit, the situation was quite bleak; food and water were in short supply.

Three days later, we returned.

The situation improved markedly since our first visit. We saw villagers beginning to salvage whatever they can from the ruins of what used to be their homes. The scene was strangely serene: People looked up from their salvage operation, waved and said "hello;" children, without a school to go back to, followed us, laughing all the way.