Building temporary houses
By Keen Zhang and David Ferguson
China.org.cn correspondents reporting from Dujiangyan,Sichuan
mkgenie@china.com.cn
Dujiangyan City is one of hard hit areas in Sichuan by the May 12 earthquake. Eleven days after the disaster, we visited this quake-shaken city. On Erhuan Road on the outskirts of the city, we stopped at a bee-hive of determined activity.
Behind the apparent chaos, swarms of workers and volunteers were busy implementing a rapidly developed and resourceful plan. They are putting together a relief camp of pre-fabricated housing units.
The central government has ordered the immediate construction of one million of these units to provide shelter for earthquake victims. The homes will be made from light steel, plywood, and other recyclable materials, and will be designed to be earthquake-proof.
One of the managers of the project, a Mr. Jia, outlined the plan to us.
Each 20 square-meter house will provide accommodation for a three-person family unit. It is intended that all homeless victims of the earthquake will be housed by early August, and that they will stay in the camps for between three and five years while permanent homes are provided.
The units will have three beds and electricity. Each will have its own postal address. Communal facilities will include showers, toilets, refectories, schools, and a supermarket. Everything will be free to occupants in possession of their resident's card, and work has already started in looking for jobs for the community.
The development has been named with optimism in mind – Xingfu Jiayuan, Happy Garden. To see the progress that has been made was deeply impressive. In only three days, almost five hundred units are nearly ready. In less than a week, another thousand units will complete the first phase of the development. Ultimately, Xingfu Jiayuan will house ten thousand people. It is one of five or six such developments under way around the city.
As fast as the builders can work, the new residents are arriving. As workers finished fixing the roofs onto one block of houses, refugees were already moving into their temporary homes, helped by eager and tireless volunteers.
Feng Wentan, a 23-year-old postgraduate student from Sichuan University studying English and Fluid Mechanics, took a few minutes to tell us how proud he was to play his part in the relief effort. Along with forty of his classmates, he had spent several days in Mianyang, working in a hospital and the main relief camp there. He had been reassigned to Xingfu Jiayuan that very morning, and was once more willing to do his best.
And with that he hurried off to share the burden of another family moving their possessions into the camp.
This is a happier and positive experience for us. But the sufferings continue in the quake-shaken areas. In Dujiangyan we also met a group of people outside a damaged building in an area where others had collapsed. One was an old woman. Together they were trying to retrieve their belongings from their homes as quickly as possible. One man shouted at the old woman to take more care.
"My mother is risking her life, we are all risking our lives to do it," an exhausted man called Wang told us, added that if they didn't do it themselves, nobody would.
The buildings have been condemned by the authorities, and are going to be demolished for safety. Ling Jungao, another of the group, told us that there had been recent rumors of thieves dressed as volunteers or policemen stealing from dangerous buildings. He had heard that around twenty people have been arrested for doing this.
"This is a critical time," he told us, "and the government is so busy. It can't keep an eye on everything that is happening. As you can see, we are here taking things from the buildings, but so far no policeman has come to check if we are residents or thieves." He showed us his ID card to prove he was a genuine resident.
Indeed, the police were not far away. Just a couple of hundred meters up the road, a squad was helping people to dismantle temporary shelters, and moving them to better accommodation in relief camps.
Ling was going to move temporarily into the home of relatives in Nongke Village, one of the first country village tourist sites in China. But Wang and his mother were still wondering where to go.
Wang is from Qinghai. He had just bought a home in Dujiangyan, intending to have his mother live with him. The city is one of China's premium tourism spots, and a perfect place for the old to enjoy a peaceful retirement.
After the earthquake he went to the authorities in search for help. But they were too busy with local residents to make any arrangements for him and other outsiders. They will have to wait, and they don't know how long the situation will last.
Other people on the street, and some who were throwing non-breakables from a top-floor balcony, said that they too were receiving no aid.
But none of the group wanted to voice or hear criticism of the authorities. On the contrary, they were proud of their self-reliance. "For the time being we can seek help from our relatives. We won't take a single bottle of water from government. We can take care of ourselves. We're not going to put pressure on our government when it is dealing with people whose needs are so much greater than ours."
Wang and his mother will wait in their temporary tent for approval to move to a more formal relief site. "Right now, a simple thing like a good night's sleep is a luxury for us", he added.
Close to this site is the location of Xin Jian Primary School, a special school for deaf children. Around four hundred children died when the school collapsed, and it is a harrowing place to visit.
A crying mother in Xinjian Primary School
Three distraught parents were there, two mothers and a father. All had lost a child in the school, and all were grief-stricken, and angry. They spoke to us about their loss, and demanded answers.
Their children's school was the only building in the area that collapsed, despite the fact that it was surrounded by others that are clearly old and in a poor state of repair. Another part of the school suffered no damage - not even a tile fell off the facade. There are questions to be answered about the quality of the building.
One of our reporters took a piece of fallen masonry the size of a large suitcase and began to hammer it with a brick. In a few seconds other bricks began to fall off as the mortar gave way. In a couple of minutes he could have broken the whole thing to pieces. The parents watched and wept in despair.
We gave what comfort we could to them, by listening and letting them tell their stories. Everyone should do this, whether reporters like us, friends and family, or merely passers-by. It is through talking about their loss that these people will learn to come to terms with it. The pain will never leave them, but one day they will be able to carry on with their lives.
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