Chinese town reborn from ashes of quake

The fate of the residents of Yingxiu changed forever the moment an earthquake hit the small town with the magnitude of 8 on a summer afternoon in 2008.

Being the epicentre, the formerly nondescript town, deep inside the hills and mountains in the Sichuan province of China, was thrown into total chaos as mountains split and swayed, buildings reduced to rubble and its infrastructure and communications were destroyed.

About 6,500 of around 12,000 permanent residents of Yingxiu were killed that day and the rest were left to suffer utter devastation as people tried bare-handed to dig relatives and neighbours from the debris.

Seven years on from the nightmare, the town is now reborn from the ashes and its residents have recovered from the tremendous sorrow inflicted on them with the loss of their families in the disaster.

Strolling through the reconstructed town, one may get stunned by sparkling new houses built in combination of the Qiang, Hui, Han and Tibetan architectural styles. If not for the remaining ruins from the quake, it might be hard to imagine that the town suffered such devastation.

A school building in ruins in the aftermath of the quake.

With the assistance from the central and provincial governments, Yingxiu has been transformed into a quake-themed tourist destination with a huge number of people visiting the town every day to see how it recovered from such a disaster.

As this correspondent reached the town on a chilly and overcast day last month, the group of journalists gazed awestruck at the breathtaking sceneries the town was surrounded by. The small town, as it seemed, is nestled in picturesque mountains and hills with thick white clouds hanging around almost like mosquito nets.

"We are standing on the town built upon the ruins and rubble," said tour guide Chen Xiurong, welcoming the group with a traditional style.

Yingxiu, once a town with several factories, has been re-designed as a comfortable living and environmentally friendly town, with the focus on tourism, said the guide dressed in traditional ethnic clothing.

Each of the building in Yingxiu, now home to about 7,000 residents, is no more than three storeys and designed to withstand an earthquake of 8-magnitude on the Richter scale.

A four-star hotel, a hospital, a park, and a large conference centre have been set up in this town. Everything is modern except some disaster sites they have kept untouched.

Chen said the newly constructed buildings are of world-class anti-earthquake standards built with the state-of-the-art techniques.

The economic structure of this town has also changed after the quake. Almost each family now runs their business on the first floor of the newly built houses.

A small furniture store, for example, is run by the family of a youth, Yang Hao. He sells furniture and sculpture made of rare woods, a bit higher than the normal retail price. He also exhibits those well.

"With the help of the government, we managed to set up this store. The government cares for us," Yang said.

He said his sale was good enough. "We have employed seven local people and our annual revenue is around 1 million yuan. We are very satisfied now," he noted.

The 15-year-old youth also said he was inside his previous house when the earthquake struck.

"I was buried under the rubble but was rescued after some frantic efforts," said Yang, who was only six and a student of the lone local school at that time.

"We're very lucky that none of our family members except me was hurt [minor injuries]," he added.

Lanka, director of foreign affairs office of the prefectural government of Wenchuan, to which Yingxiu belongs, said they are now striving to develop tourism.

"We hope to make the town a place of tourist attraction," he said.

Across the town, a structure, which used to be a school, sits at a precarious angle, with one side sunk deep into the ground.

The school namely Xuankou Middle School was reduced to rubble by the quake. There were 1,500 students inside that day. Of them, 55 including 43 teachers were killed.

The schoolyard has been converted into an earthquake museum as the authorities have kept the campus untouched. Inside, a concrete-made clock is seen on a stairwell showing 2:28pm, the time when the earthquake hit.

The half-fallen ruins of the school buildings including a laboratory with cracks on the external walls are a reminder to visitors about the destruction. Entry into these buildings, of course, is prohibited.

The message that the Yingxiu people have given to the band of tourists is that there is always hope in life.