The crunch of broken tiles and crumbled masonery underfoot marks our progress through what’s left of Jiulong township.
As we pass a wrecked Buddhist temple, we notice one of the three monks doing his washing near the tent that now forms his temporary residence.
Leading the way is Jaime Bara, who heads the Spanish Red Cross emergency response unit, helping provide clean drinking water for the residents of this shattered place.
“The water needs to be safe and it needs to be accessible,” Mr. Bara says as he stops here to ask a group of local residents about their water needs. Further down the road he stops again, this time to help a woman wash her fruit at one of the tap stands the five-member Spanish team and their local counterparts have installed.
There have been no major outbreaks of disease, but the location of many of the township’s wells among the rubble is a cause for concern.
As we pick our way among the shattered houses, we meet Huang Dexiu, a thin but resilient looking woman in her 70’s. She recounts the story of her handicapped husband’s rescue from the ruins of their house.
“I thought he was dead and I really didn’t have the will to go on living myself, but then we managed to pull him out.”
Working closely with the Spanish, the British Red Cross emergency response team is providing proper sanitation to many people whose latrines have been destroyed.
“The local volunteers have been absolutely amazing, supporting us in every possible way,” says British team leader Ina Bluemel.
Following a brief training, it is they who are taking up the work of digging the holes and installing the white toilet cabins – interspersed with some more basic green latrine tents – throughout the villages and hamlets that surround the township.
Normal life is only evident in the few buildings not shattered by the disaster. The few shops that remain standing carry on a tentative trade in everyday items, which people need all the more now that their homes are no longer in existence.
Most of the residents are still living in tents, but plans are being finalized to build pre-fabricated temporary shelters in a couple of locations around the township.
There is obviously an impatience to get on with the task of rebuilding, not just here, but throughout the tent cities that line the roads of the earthquake zone.
I think back to the survivors I have met over the last month: the man running a small snack bar, who wondered what the future holds; the painter-decorator, who smiled gleefully, when I said he’d have plenty of work very soon; the teacher, who worried about the education system, with so many administrators having lost their lives as well as the thousands of students.
I am sure China will stun the world with the speed and efficiency of the operation to rebuild. Yet, I’m equally certain that it will be an uneven process, which won’t reach all communities with the same pace and intensity, leaving much for the Red Cross Red Crescent as it continues to reach out to the families and individuals in greatest need.
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Working closely with the Spanish, the British Red Cross emergency response team is providing proper sanitation to many people whose latrines have been destroyed. (p17786)
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“The water needs to be safe and it needs to be accessible,” Mr. Bara says as he stops here to ask a group of local residents about their water needs. (p17787)
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