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Quake Dispatch: Gloomy City, Huge Cracks
05-13 17:52 Caijing Magazine
A Caijing reporter travels to the disaster scene in Sichuan Province and describes what he sees in a city of 10 million, while aftershocks continue.
By staff reporter Ouyang Hongliang
Due to disaster-related delays it took us more than 10 hours to travel to Chengdu from Beijing by air -- even though the flight usually takes only 2 1/2 hours.
Our initial flight was canceled because the Chengdu airport, about 100 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake that hit the afternoon of May 12, was totally sealed off. Even at 10 p.m., the airport was filled with journalists waiting anxiously for a flight.
Finally, a plane was ready to leave for Chongqing, near Chengdu. After boarding, though, the plane sat on the tarmac for another hour while we waited for a team of power company experts and grid workers being dispatched to restore electricity in the disaster zone.
Experts from Beijing were needed because hard-hit Wenchuan County and nearby Deyang had been blacked out, Zhu Ming of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission told me on the plane.
I finally arrived in Chengdu at dawn May 13.
The city looks gloomy and a bit chaotic. It is drizzling. Huge cracks can be seen on some buildings.
Fearing aftershocks, many people have set up tents in the street or are just sleeping outdoors in the open. It's impossible to check into a hotel. All rooms are taken, and the lobbies are full of local residents wrapped in blankets.
All trains have stopped running. More than 30,000 would-be travelers are waiting inside the railway station.
Radio reports say Chengdu, a city of 10 million and the capital of Sichuan Province, has had more than 500 aftershocks. Some people had stayed up all night, in case the ground shook again.
While I write my report in the newsroom of the Chengdu Evening News, two aftershocks occur. I look through a window and notice that the building opposite ours is obviously shaking.
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