Interpreting the Sichuan earthquake
Updated: 2008-06-12 10:56
BEIJING -- Nations usually best prove themselves in front of disasters. In the past 30 days, the world has seen a China displaying solidarity and free will -- something not organized but spontaneous.
The gloomy moment on May 12, when people thousands of kilometers away from Sichuan sensed tremor and felt dizzy, was meant to be traumatic -- the moment left nearly 70,000 dead and several millions homeless.
Previously unknown county names such as Wenchuan, Beichuan, Qingchuan and Maoxian in the southwestern Sichuan Province have become quite familiar to the Chinese since they were badly hit by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake.
For many, changes came in different ways, not only in the shattered landscape in the mountainous Sichuan, but also the response of the government and the general public. Changes in media coverage -- from Tangshan to Wenchuan
When the 7.8-magnitude Tangshan earthquake in the summer of 1976 claimed more than 240,000 lives and left millions more injured or homeless, people had no history to learn from and were forced to live in doubts and fears. The media at the time was too busy covering "class struggles," which were almost a daily routine during the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The national wire service, Xinhua News Agency, only mentioned a quake occurred in a city 180 kilometers to the west of Beijing.
Chinese people suffered an even more dreadful disaster 32 years later when the Wenchuan-centered earthquake devoured towns and counties in seconds. Media today is not what it was three decades ago.
Within 20 minutes of the quake, Xinhua released a flash confirming a big tremor from the China Earthquake Administration; about 10 minutes later, the China Central Television (CCTV) started the non-stop live coverage on the disaster and relief work. Such coverage had never been seen in China before for any domestic natural disaster.
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