When the rescuers found her, she was already dead, crushed by the collapsed building. They could see her through the debris, on her knees with hands flat on the ground, holding up her body. It was almost as if she was bowing ceremoniously, but her body was misshapen, crushed by the building. Rescuers reached a hand in to check that she was dead, shouting and using a stick to lightly knock on the bricks, waiting for a reply or some sign of life from her that never came. When the group turned their attention towards the next pile of debris, the team leader suddenly rushed back, shouting, “Over here, hurry!” He once again stopped in front of her body, trying his best to reach a hand in to feel the ground sheltered by her torso, shouting, “There’s someone here, a child, still alive!”

The rescuers worked to move the debris carefully, finding her child sheltered beneath her torso. A baby, about four months old, wrapped in a red blanket with yellow flowers stitched on. Sheltered by his mother’s body, he was unscathed. They carried him out from the debris, sound asleep, his sleeping face warming the hearts of everyone at the scene in the face of death.

A doctor rushed over, undoing the blanket to check for signs of injury on the baby. He found a handphone stuffed under the blanket, and instinctively glanced at the screen. There was a message on the screen, “My darling, if you live through this, please remember that I love you.” Despite having seen death countless times, tears rolled down the doctor’s face. The handphone was passed around, evoking tears from everyone at the scene.

The young mother must have tried calling for help using the handphone, but in disasters of this scale, telecommunications often fail. She spent her last moments leaving a message for her beloved child.

Beijing Evening News, May 15th

100 meters down from the building of Beichuan County Committee is the most densely populated area of the county, and now it has become the biggest ruin. Buildings cracked in the quake and were totally devoured by grave landslide.

Around one o’clock yesterday (May 14th), rescuers found a little girl trapped in the ruin of a kindergarten. Since after-quakes were frequent, the ruin might fall again at any moment, which has put the little girl’s life greatly endangered. “Come! Someone’s here!” A dozen of rescuers gathered around the spot. “Uncle, I’m not scared, please don’t worry.” During the process of rescuing, the girl tried to comfort the rescuers while they were trying to relieve her. Stones were moved one by one, and until then did the rescuers find that the little girl’s legs were stuck and covered with blood. Biting her own lips, obviously the little girl is severely tortured with agony.

“Two tighers, fast runners…” With simple tools, the rescue progressed very slowly, yet just at this moment when everyone was in great anxiety, the girl blurted out this child’s song. “I will feel no pain if I sing.” After being rescued, the girl told a rescuer that her name is Ren Siyu.

“Siyu!…” 6 o’clock in the evening, when it was turning dark, a couple was striding in the rain, and their deplorable cry echoed in the valley. “Really? Thank you so much!” Knowing that their daughter had been rescued, they held the rescuer’s hand tightly and broke down in tears.

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“I feel no pain when I sing.” This reminded me of something from Churchill’s Memoir: When he was inspecting London after an air raid, he found a vibrant green plant in an air-raid shelter, and he said, because of this plant Britain will triumph, for their love for life weighs this much. (Commented by Xi Wang)

I don’t think possible criticism by the international press and foreign governments was a factor. Hasn’t stopped China from heavily censoring news about North Korea, Farlonggone, and other sensitive topics. The motivating factor was likely competition from internet news sources. China’s state media had two choices: let foreign news organizations and domestic news forums tell the stories or take advantage of better access to write its own narrative of the tragedy.

China has the swiftest reaction to this tragedy. PRC continuously sent up to 130,000 relief workers, soldiers, firefighters, doctors, and nurses, in less than 3 days to the earth quake striken area. It was more difficult initially as torrential rain, landslides, ruined vehicles, and other debris blocked the roads. These rescue teams had to walk by foot, etc to cross these obstacles in the mountainous terrain. Allowing the foreign relief workers initially would have created more traffic for the local relief teams. However China did welcome aids such as food, water, medicine, blankets, tents, money, etc around the world. Russia sent a 30 ton of such aids to China two days ago. The world poured in money. Blood donators in mainland stood in long lines till late night to donate blood. Civilians volunteer to use their own vehicles and resources to supply food and water the victims.

Since the weather clears up, and debris have been removed (not perfect) but passable. Currently China is accepting rescue teams from Japan, Taiwan etc.