Temblor’s unsung heroes show the love of the people

The PLA (People’s Liberation Army), armed police and security forces responded to the mega disaster — a magnitude 8 earthquake that struck Sichuan at 2:28 p.m. on May 12 — like fighting a real war. On the evening of the fateful day, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, already in Dujiangyan near the epicenter, ordered the military to rush to the stricken area which was cut off from the outside world by landslides.

It was like a mission impossible. The order was to have the military reach Wenchuan, the hardest-hit township located in lofty, verdant mountains, where virtually no structures were left standing. Serpentine mountain roads were blocked by rocks and boulders. It was a tall order to fulfill, but Wen was adamant. “My order is to get the 100,000 trapped people, who are your providers, out of the harm’s way. This is order,” he told a military commander over the phone who said the troops were blocked by landslides.

To obey orders is the first duty of the military, as everybody knows. The military did fulfill the order by hiking 25 hours to reach the devastated Wenchuan, over a stretch of 90-km mountain road. It was the first batch of outsiders to come to the rescue of the villagers.

If the hike to Wenchuan was an act of valor, the parachuting to Maoxian, another hard-hit area further north, was an epic of bravery. Because of the rugged terrain and cragged mountains, it was impossible for the troops and helicopters to get there. The PLA ordered its paratroopers to carry out the mission by jumping from an altitude of 5,000 meters, five times the usual height for safe jumping. It was a mission accomplished at great risk.

As people from all over the world could see from television and newspapers, the young soldiers dressed in green uniform were fighting China’s worst disaster like fighting a real war. They were equipped with only iron picks, shovels, crowbars, without power tools. They dug into piles of bricks and slabs and concrete with bare hands and primitive tools.

They saved hundreds of victims buried under rubble. They never gave up any hope, how slim it might be, for saving a dying man or woman. Just Tuesday, eight days after the quake, a 31-year-old worker named Ma Yuanjiang was saved miraculously after having been buried beneath a collapsed factory building in Yingxiu near Wenchuan. They worked around the clock under difficult conditions, demonstrating a kind of tenacity that they fear neither hardship nor death. They were the unsung heroes of this war against natural disaster.

Altogether, 130,000 troops were mobilized in the rescue operation. As the Chinese saying goes, “To train the soldiers for 1,000 days is for use on one day,” these soldiers have proved their readiness and their ability to fight a war of natural disaster in time of peace. A soldier in need is a soldier indeed. Each of them deserves a medal.

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