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An earthquake of magnitude 8.0, struck Sichuan province of China on May 12, 2008. The epicentre of the earthquake was Wenchuan, which is located about 90 miles from Chengdu. The earthquake released more energy than 500 atomic bombs, 30 times more than the Kobe earthquake in Japan, 1995. More than 4.7 million houses were collapsed or heavily damaged and it claimed thousands of lives. Cities close to the epicentre were flattened as whole mountains collapsed on top of them. Millions of people lost their beloved ones, their homes, their belongings yet there was no looting and no complains, just people helping one another out.Chinese took the humanity to a greater height at their hour of test. Within hours, people rushed to rescue. Blood donation lines ran for 100 yards, and people waited hours to donate blood; within 24 hours, all major blood banks ran out storage space. The highway to the earthquake struck city Dujianyang (20 mile from Chengdu) was almost jammed one hour after the earthquake, not by people fleeing the aftershocks, but by volunteers, led by over 1,000 taxi drivers, who came from Chengdu to rescue. Medical workers provided care under extreme conditions; they even delivered many new born babies on the parking lot. Wen Jiabao, the 66 year old Chinese Prime Minister, boarded on a plane 30 minutes after the earthquake, and arrived at the disaster area in 2 hours. He assumed the role as chief of the rescue operation and worked almost round the clock at the frontline with rescue workers. 11,000 paratroopers started boarding airplanes 2 hours after the earthquake. Despite heavy rain, high wind and thick clouds, they jumped from over 20,000 feet to remote mountain areas where they did not even know if there would be a place for them to land. The first to jump off a plane was a 51 year old Senior Colonel, Li Zhenbo. With roads buried by landslide and bad weather hammering airborne operations, a group of 600 soldiers and medical teams, led by Major General Xia Guofu, 57 years old, Commander in Chief of Sichuan Military District, walked 21 hours straight on foot in mountain area, carrying heavy relief supplies, risking landslide and falling rocks. They were the first group to arrive at the epicentre of the earthquake. Soldiers and rescue workers worked round the clock to rescue people still buried. Unable to transport heavy machineries to the remote areas since roads were buried by landslides, they often had to use hands to move tons of concrete. Many rich people donated in millions, but no one could match Xu Chao, a 60 year old man. He was a poor homeless person from Nanjing, 1000 miles from the disaster area. He saw the news and went to donate 5 Yuan in the morning. He said people in the disaster area were worse off than him because their lives were threatened. He came back in the afternoon, donated another 100 Yuan ($14). He explained that all he had were pennies and dimes, and he didn’t want to waste volunteer workers’ time to count them, so he went to the bank to change everything he had into one big bill. This was from a man who did not have enough money to buy food for himself.
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