Rising From the Rubble of the Sichuan Quake

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The Father
While Zhang works to rebuild Beichuan, Lu Shihua toils to figure out why the town collapsed. The single father, 40, lost his only child when the Beichuan No. 1 Middle School crumbled. His wife had died 16 years earlier giving birth to their daughter Lu Fang, and Lu had resolved to raise her on his own. It is with a similar determination that Lu now fights for an answer to why the school caved in, crushing his daughter. Lu had just had lunch with her in town an hour before the quake struck. He felt the earth move, and then rocks tumbled down from a nearby peak. As soon as the tremors eased, he ran to the school. "The five-story building was completely flattened, and young, broken bodies were everywhere," he says. "I cried and cried, dug and dug, until the police stopped us."

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Four days later, Lu found his daughter's body in the rubble. He recognized her by a pair of cloth shoes, which had been handmade by her grandmother. A few days after identifying his child's corpse, Lu posted petitions calling for an investigation into the school deaths. (See pictures of the earthquake in China.)

At the time, grieving parents seemed like an immovable political force. But local authorities began blocking access to the sites of demolished schools where parents and journalists would gather. The government offered compensation to parents--hush money in exchange for a promise to keep quiet. Those that didn't acquiesce faced official intimidation. Lu says police frequently questioned him; the only shop with a fax in his village has been told not to let him send documents. Nevertheless, Lu continues. In late October, he received a statement from Beichuan officials denying any flaws in the building. Lu isn't satisfied. "As long as I am breathing, I will seek an answer to my question: Why did the classroom building of Beichuan No. 1 Middle School completely collapse?" he asks. "I just want to have an answer so all those who passed away in Beichuan can rest in peace."

The Shopkeeper
A short walk from where Lu's daughter died, a temporary town has sprouted. Nearly 4,000 residents from the mountainside village of Tangjiashan, which was destroyed in a landslide, now live in makeshift houses, among which Luo Xiqun, 22, runs a tiny shop selling soft drinks, beer, hot sauce, instant noodles, cooking oil and toothpaste. She and her boyfriend Yang Yong had planned to marry this year. Then the earthquake struck, flattening their house and burying their wedding nest egg. At the time, money was the last thing on Luo's mind. "I wanted to live," she says. "No one else in the same building made it out, but somehow I survived." Luo walked five days with an injured foot and no shoes to make it to safety.

That survival instinct remains. Luo and her family put aside nearly every cent they earn. Her fiancé leaves each morning to find work on reconstruction projects. Although unemployment is as high as 80% in some areas of the Sichuan disaster zone, Yang says he doesn't have much difficulty finding jobs. Indeed, his 50-year-old father works with him, but the family wonders how much longer the father can handle manual labor. So Luo runs her small shop to save money for the future. "We don't have plans," she says. "We don't know where we will go. Right now the most important thing is money."

The Son
On May 14, Deng Zhuyuan Sat with his family outside a foot-massage parlor in the devastated town of Hanwang, resigned to the fact that he would soon find his mother's corpse. As rescuers moved debris with a crane, Deng, 18, told me in nearly flawless English about life in his mountain town, about how he was preparing for his college-entrance exams before the quake struck. Eventually I left to walk through the wreckage of Hanwang. When I returned to where Deng was waiting, two covered corpses were lying outside the massage parlor. A family member identified Deng's mother. Deng called me over. In a voice cracking with emotion, he offered me a final few words. "You must cherish life," he said. "You must cherish every moment you are alive."

Deng has done just that. When we met six months later, it was at the new campus of Sichuan University, where he studies electrical engineering. The head of the university had asked him to give a speech commemorating the new school year. "If you're still alive, then there is no reason to despair," he told his classmates and teachers. "I am living, and my life is hopeful." Of the 36 students in his junior high school class, four died in the earthquake. "When we get together, we talk about those four," he says. "But we look to the future, not to the past."

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