A tale of miracle survival amid desperate search for life in landslide-hit village

Residents donate lunches to volunteers on Sunday.[Photo by FENG YONGBIN/CHINA DAILY]

Reporter's log: Working at edge of life, death

BY Zhang Zhihao

My dad always says life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. If this is true, that's where I am. Covering the landslide at Xinmo village in Sichuan province couldn't be further from my news beat of technology and military diplomacy.

On Saturday at around 5:40 am, 18 million cubic meters of rock, earth and water slid from the top of Fugui Mountain onto Xinmo below, burying 62 homes, killing 10 people and leaving more than 93 people missing as of Sunday afternoon.

This was my first time covering a severe natural disaster, and I didn't know what to expect. However, when our sport utility vehicle traversed the twisted, narrow mountain road, with a deep valley to our right and plenty of fallen boulders on the left, and I saw how the car in front of us almost slid off the side of a cliff, I knew it was real.

The difficult journey put my mind into a stoic mood, yet I was totally overwhelmed when I arrived at the scene on Sunday morning. Dozens of relatives were sobbing around the two tents containing the remains of dead family members; some even collapsed crying in the middle of the dirt road and had to be carried to one side by others.

Rescue workers, from military officers to civil volunteers, were climbing up and down the rocky slope. Their blue, orange and green uniforms were the only color decorating the gray, motionless rubble.

People and vehicles moved around, and the air was filled with dust and ash. Yet, the overall scene was one of silence, occasionally broken by a loud boom produced when one of the giant red excavators dropped its load.

"Everyone is exhausted; this may explain the quiet," said Gou Shaolin, 43, rescue commander for Blue Sky Rescue, a nonprofit civilian voluntary disaster rescue team. He had slept only four hours since arriving at the scene on Saturday at noon.

"Or maybe everyone is hoping for somebody to break the silence by shouting 'Someone is alive!'" he said. However, few people recovered from the rubble were.

Only three survivors had been found, but that didn't stop Liu Baoli or his 300 comrades from the regional armed police force from trying. When the first crew arrived at 8 am on Saturday, they had to excavate and lift large boulders by hand, fearing too much disturbance might trigger another slide.

The hands of He Xiaolong, the squad leader for the first team, were covered with bloody blisters. Fearing infection from dirty rainwater, he dipped both hands into alcohol before moving to the next shift.

"If there is even a sliver of hope, we will give it everything we have," he said.