"The moment the earth shook - Personal experience of the 5·12 Wenchuan Earthquake"

Without any psychological preparation, I experienced the earthquake in Dujiangyan, the city closest to the epicenter of the earthquake, Yingxiu. The most terrifying experience in my life: the 5.12 Wenchuan magnitude 8.0 earthquake!

This afternoon was my IB first-grade SL Chinese class as usual. Before the class, the students and I both felt that the weather was extremely hot. I walked around the classroom and opened all the windows to the maximum. The content of this class is Chapter 13 of "Dream of Red Mansions". As usual, the students will tell it first, but the students finished it in less than ten minutes. I feel that many students have ignored it and asked students to ask questions, but the students have nothing to do. I had to answer the question personally. When I talked about Qin Keqing entrusting Sister Feng with a dream, I asked the students: "Is this a magical realism technique?" The students said: "This is superstition!" I asked the students again: "Does Cao Xueqin think it is? Superstitious? Does Sister Feng think so? "The student said: "No! Because they believe in this!" I enlightened the students: "We think that dreams, fortune telling, and Feng Shui are superstitious today because we use them. Looking at these things from the perspective of modern scientific positivism and rationality, science and rationality are great, but they have their limitations. For example, can science and rationality solve the pain of losing relatives and friends because of the emptiness of my life? Comfort? Can science and reason guarantee our happiness? Therefore, many problems and areas cannot be understood or solved by science and reason. Therefore, we should not be too conceited by science and reason, and we should remain in awe of the mysterious power of the universe. ..." Just as I was talking about this, the desk shook, and the students were stunned and a little at a loss. Because I had experienced several minor earthquakes where the desk and bed shook before, so I had some experience with earthquakes, so I calmly spoke He comforted the students and said: "Don't panic! The earthquake is okay!..." Before he finished speaking, the teaching building shook violently and even made a rattling sound (because the classroom was a large room built with wood on the basis of a bungalow. Study room), I reacted instantly - a big earthquake! Then I rushed towards the stairs suddenly, and even fell down when I went downstairs. At this time, a thought suddenly flashed through me, "Is China under a nuclear attack?" Then I rushed to the side of the teaching building as fast as possible while crawling on the ground. in the middle of the football field! I found that I was actually the first person to arrive at the football field, followed by a foreigner holding a two-year-old child who came out of the teachers' building next to me, and a student who came down from the boys' dormitory.

At this time, the ground shook violently again, perhaps as much as one meter! At this time, I just felt that the end of the world was coming. People often say that we should keep our feet on the ground, but when the ground is not stable, we feel that nothing is reliable! With this wave of earthquakes, the 50-centimeter-thick football wall on the east side of the football field collapsed in a few seconds! Gradually, students and teachers gathered on the football field. Because it was during the IB second-year graduation exam, some students were not in class, and some students were sleeping or playing games in the dormitory. Therefore, some students wore slippers and shorts and ran around shirtless. Out! At this time, I noticed that the students in my class had not come out yet. After a while, I saw them coming to the playground one after another. I asked them strangely: "Why don't you come out?" The students replied: "We didn't come out at the beginning. When we reacted, we just saw you disappearing in a flash. When we reacted, we were so scared that we hid under the table! We didn't come out until the violent earthquake subsided! Teacher, why didn't you take us out before leaving? "I have never been a person who is brave enough to sacrifice myself. I only care about my own life. Don't you know? I also ran away very fast during the fire in the middle of the night!" Having said that, I asked myself after that: "Why did I?" Did you run away without organizing the students to evacuate? "Actually, the room was shaking so hard at that moment. I knew that I was just reacting instinctively. I have a strong sense of crisis. Whenever there is danger, I react faster and escape faster. quick! However, the instantaneous instinctive decision may reflect the inner weighing of self and other people's lives. Later, I told the students who were disappointed with me: "I am a person who pursues freedom and justice, but I do not put others first." People who have the courage to sacrifice themselves! In this moment of life and death, I can only consider sacrificing myself for my daughter. I will not care about other people, even my mother, because in this situation. I can't hold adults. If there is little time to escape, one by one. If it is too dangerous, there is no point in me dying with you. If there is no danger, I don't care about you and you are not in danger, not to mention you are seventeen or eighteen years old. "This may be my self-exculpation, but I don't have the slightest sense of moral guilt. I also told the students: "I will never be a brave person to fight against a knife-wielding gangster!" Having said that, it will be dangerous next time! When it comes, I can’t even predict what I will do now. I only know that when facing totalitarianism, I am not the person who rushes to the front and goes to jail.

At this time, I began to care about the safety of my family in Chengdu and Xiaohu and Li Yulong. However, there was no signal on my mobile phone at first. Obviously due to the power outage, the airport station could not work normally. After a while, the mobile phone had a signal. Perhaps the station activated backup power generation equipment. But there were too many people calling at this time, and my call couldn't be made at all, and the same was true for other people's calls. Water, electricity, communications and transportation were interrupted, so we had to stay quietly in the playground and wait. Some students even played football when they were so nervous. I also joined in wearing hiking boots. At this time, we need to be so calm. Attitude to relieve inner tension and panic! I waited until 5 o'clock in the afternoon before a teacher heard the broadcast from Deyang Radio Station on a mini radio: a magnitude 7.8 (Editor's note: later adjusted to magnitude 8.0) earthquake, with the epicenter in Wenchuan! The same magnitude as the Tangshan earthquake! Everyone was stunned! And the epicenter is so close to Dujiangyan! Everyone guessed: "Wenchuan must have been whitewashed!" At this time, one of my students looked heavy, because his parents, brothers and other relatives were all in Wenchuan County. At this time, we did not know that the epicenter was Yingxiu in Wenchuan and not Wenchuan. At the foot of the county seat! I didn’t know that Dujiangyan is actually closer to the epicenter than Wenchuan County! And Wenchuan completely lost communication with the outside world, and traffic was completely interrupted! This student told me: "Wenchuan is prone to earthquakes, and there was a 6.5-magnitude earthquake the year before last. But except for some old houses, the houses in Wenchuan were all built according to level 7 earthquake protection, so there was no problem."

But this time Dujiangyan was even more severe than the Wenchuan earthquake the year before..." At this point, the student almost choked up and was speechless! Only then did I remember that I couldn't sleep in the dormitory or office. Should I live in the playground at night? That would also require quilts and clothes. Ah! If I go back to Chengdu, I will need money! I opened the building and returned to my dormitory in fear. I found that the bucket had been knocked off the water dispenser, and several pieces of clothes on the stool had also been shaken off. In the rush, I only took the money but forgot to bring the clothes and quilt, because the dormitory I lived in was a house that had been repaired for 16 years, and there was a big gap between the bathroom wall and the room wall! After I came out, I never had the courage to go back to the dormitory!

After that, I wandered around the front playground and found that all the students from the primary school and kindergarten were there, so I went over to chat with him. . I said: "In my impression, the house in Guangya School is not very sturdy! How come none of them fell down? Principal Qing replied somewhat proudly: "The house in our school is built like a bunker. How could it collapse?" I'm contracting work but not materials! Those contractors all fought with me to contract work and materials, but I was determined not to do it. I bought the materials! I can pay more for the labor because the house is cast in place! The floor and walls are all connected! Fix it. We have used instruments to check the steel and cement content! "It turns out that he wasn't prescient, he just didn't cut corners, and he didn't have any special quality assurance or earthquake-proof design! I was relieved that even the house in Guangya School, which didn't look very good, didn't collapse, so There may not be much of a problem in other places. At this time, I successively received text messages from Guo Chuyang, Lu Dong and Luobo Keng asking about their safety, and they all responded successfully. In addition, the text messages sent to Li Yulong were also successfully sent and received a reply, knowing that he and The little fox was fine. Only then did I remember that my mother, brothers and sisters in my hometown might also be worried after seeing the news about the earthquake in Dujiangyan, so they should call home. At this time, only the landline phone was still available, but there were too many people calling. , I waited for a long time and didn’t get the chance, so I had to give up! At this time, a student who walked to the city to observe the situation said: "Dujiangyan City suffered terribly, 20% of the houses collapsed! The Guangya School house really withstood the test this time! "The teachers and students of the school have always criticized the construction quality of Guangya School's houses. After this earthquake, they can't help but admire Principal Qing and his Guangya School's houses!

At this time in Chengdu The principal's wife also came back. She said: "Chengdu is fine, but the teaching building of Dujiangyan Juyuan Middle School collapsed. Eighteen classes of students were buried underneath. Hundreds of people died. The education director knelt there and cried!" Another resident near Guangya School who came back from Juyuan Town said: "I was shopping at the store at the time. I ran so fast that all the houses on both sides of the street collapsed in an instant. I ran over dead bodies. It was terrible!" Another parent of Guangya School students said: "It seems that if you pay more money, the quality will be better, and my child will be fine in Guangya!" "

Starting from five or six o'clock in the afternoon, some parents of students in Dujiangyan and Chengdu came to the school one after another to pick up their children.

I also took the car of the student's parents back to Chengdu at around nine o'clock. The traffic in Dujiangyan was a mess. Even the excavator and the ambulance could not move forward smoothly because there were too many cars running in the lane! We walked on the Second Ring Road for nearly an hour, and finally drove onto the Chengguan Expressway at around ten o'clock. After the car drove for a while, I received a text message from Wei Yong: "Reply the message if you are still alive!" I quickly replied. : "I'm fine, my school is fine, but the situation in Dujiangyan is serious!" After the car drove out of the toll station, we found that the west line had been used as a special channel for disaster relief. Vehicles detoured from the beltway into the city, and then I took a taxi directly back home. , there was no one at home. I had received a text message from my wife before and knew that they had taken shelter in the open space of a nearby Waldorf school. So I took my bank card and quickly rushed to the Waldorf school and found that The school has set up two large tents and a dozen small tents, and my daughter has already fallen asleep in her car! My wife was sitting around chatting with some Waldorf teachers and students’ parents. My sudden appearance surprised my wife because my phone calls have been blocked since the earthquake, and she has been worried about me! That night I slept on the school bus of a Waldorf school. I couldn't stretch my body. I felt stuffy with the door closed, and there were mosquitoes when I opened the door. All in all, I had an uncomfortable sleep. While half asleep and half awake, I felt the car shaking obviously twice more. Because it was outdoors, I didn't have any psychological burden, so I didn't react in any way.

Waiting until after six o'clock, my aunt came to call me and said that her sister had not slept all night because she was not accustomed to the environment, because mosquitoes kept biting her, and the little one kept waking up and crying. We had to go home quickly. But at this time, everyone had become frightened, and their reaction to the earthquake was so intense that everyone was in panic. I always keep an eye on the drinking water bucket and tea cup to see if the water is shaking. When I feel the sofa move while sitting on the sofa, I will say solemnly: "It seemed to have moved again just now!" and prepare to get up and tell everyone to run away. ! In fact, there were many aftershocks from the shaking water in the glass in one day, and there were two major aftershocks from the shaking chandelier! We had packed our clothes, bought dry food, held umbrellas, and stood at the door, ready to rush out at any time, but in the end we did not rush out, and many people had already rushed out! Because sleeping outside was too uncomfortable, we simply slept at home on the night of the 13th. However, because I was worried about the little one, I was always very alert and did not sleep well at all. I can run very fast on my own, but if I’m holding a little guy, that’s not necessarily the case! Moreover, you are likely to fall over in a panic, so you must react quickly to gain time. Don’t be careless! In fact, I infer that the aftershocks cannot exceed the magnitude of 5.12. Since there is no danger in Chengdu on 5.12, then there will definitely be no danger in Chengdu after the aftershocks.

But the citizens of Chengdu, who had never experienced such a violent earthquake, were obviously frightened, and the tense atmosphere they created also infected me! I was also very nervous! At noon that day, I received another text message from Li Yong, informing me to quickly store water because the Dujiangyan Chemical Plant leaked and the water source in Chengdu has been polluted! So everyone hurriedly found pots and jars to store water! I wonder what's wrong if the water can't be used? So I quickly asked the water delivery company to deliver five buckets of water, but they only had two buckets of water left! And people in shopping malls are also rushing to buy mineral water! At this time, I was already considering whether to withdraw to my hometown, Longchang, or simply evacuate to Kunming, where my wife and brothers are! Turn on the TV, and the TV station is repeatedly refuting the rumors, saying that there is no such thing as a leak from the Hua Factory, and there is no problem with Chengdu’s water supply! Logically speaking, I should be relieved, but because our party is a habitual liar, I couldn't believe it even if it told the truth this time, so I made a phone call directly to Principal Qing Guangya in Dujiangyan, and he said: "No. The chemical plant leaked and the fire was caused by a gas explosion!" I was relieved!

I haven’t had a comfortable meal for two days in a row. On the morning of the 14th, I finally made a meal of three dishes and one soup. The steaming hot dishes with all the colors, flavors and aromas were ready and placed on the table. The tomato and egg drop soup was almost ready when I suddenly received a call from Xiaohu, saying that there was a big earthquake between 1 and 2 o'clock and telling me to evacuate immediately. When I saw the time, it was already 1:16 , a big earthquake could happen at any time, I immediately turned off the fire and told everyone to leave quickly! But my wife is still reluctant to part with the delicious food! But my aunt's five-year-old son couldn't bear to part with the glutinous rice balls that he had just eaten after one or two! I couldn’t laugh or cry. Compared with life, what is a delicious meal and a bowl of glutinous rice balls? If a devastating earthquake suddenly occurs, will it be too late for my mother-in-law? Women are just as irrational and lack decision-making as children! I hurried to Waldorf, where many students and parents had already gathered. It was raining lightly, so we kept sitting under the big tent because many children were making noise there. The little guy couldn't sleep well and seemed to be in a very depressed mood! After a while, we felt two more obvious shakings. I estimate that the magnitude of the epicenter is around 5 or 6. People in the epicenter area still need to worry, but the magnitude generally decreases by two levels from the epicenter to Chengdu, which is probably 3 or 4. What's the problem? Everyone was really panicked. Because the shaking was so slight, we even judged that a major earthquake had not yet arrived. We waited until after five o'clock in the afternoon, and my wife and I finally decided to go home. Because even if we can tolerate such an environment, the little guy can't stand it anymore. On the night of the 14th, I still mustered up the courage to sleep at home. I was worried about my family, especially my little one. I was still alert at all times, still half asleep and half awake. Only then did I realize that I cared about my family, especially my daughter, much more than I cared about my daughter. My students! Around 11 o'clock that night, there was another strong earthquake. The mother of three children under one year old who lived in my house reacted quickly and rushed out of the room with her children in their arms, while other people in the same community had basically evacuated. Everyone went downstairs. When I saw that the shaking had gradually subsided, I told everyone not to go out. But I was worried, so I told them to sleep peacefully. I sat in the living room alone and stayed up all night. I spent the next few days in such panic. I felt exhausted from the tension and worry, and staying up all night. I feel that I am afraid that the big earthquake has not yet come, but we ourselves have already collapsed! It is really the fear of the fear that is coming but does not know when it will come that is the most terrifying! I started to sleep peacefully on the night of the 17th. On the 18th, I even felt relieved. I no longer felt suspicious because my stool moved, and I kept my eyes on the water glass all the time! I slept very comfortably that night and felt that most of my energy had been restored.

Unexpectedly, at about ten o'clock in the evening, I saw people in the community fleeing outside one after another, and said: "It was announced on TV that there will be six to seven magnitude aftershocks today and tomorrow!" I quickly turned on the TV and saw that it was playing repeatedly on the TV. Urgent notice! Many friends also called to inform me, and the atmosphere suddenly became very tense! I analyzed it calmly and said, "As the name suggests, the aftershock zone refers to the area where aftershocks occur, and Chengdu is obviously not in the aftershock zone. In this case, you shouldn't worry!" My wife insisted on going out. She said, "There is another scene on TV. I didn’t say except Chengdu! You are not an earthquake expert!” Considering that there are three children living at home, for their safety, I finally decided to go out together. At this time, the street was in chaos! This evening we spent the night again on the Waldorf campus! The little guy seemed so excited that he almost didn't sleep all night and couldn't express his thoughts at all! The foreign Waldorf teacher sleeping next to me reminded him to keep his voice down. Unexpectedly, the little guy shouted louder, "Wow, wow, wow, wow..." Everyone laughed! Children don’t know the seriousness of the matter, they just think it’s fun! That night I slept in the car for another three or four hours. After nearly ten days of stress and exhaustion, my body finally collapsed. I had a stuffy nose and a headache. It was obvious that I had a bad cold! Fortunately, the earthquake seems to have finally passed! In the coming days, the frequency and intensity of earthquakes will decrease, so maybe we can gradually feel at ease, right?