AROUND 2:30 pm on Monday, Zhu Qi had his first brush with terror. He’d been awakened from an afternoon nap. His bunk was shaking. The door to his dormitory room was jammed shut. When Zhu, a postgrad at Chengdu University of Technology, managed to join his classmates outside, the earth had stopped moving. But the damage had been done.

At area universities, students had fled dorms and classrooms with the clothes on their back. But at least they were alive. Only 96 kilometers away in Wenchuan County, thousands of people, young and old, were buried in rubble.

The 7.8-magnitude quake had devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid the steep and forested hills of northwestern Sichuan. The quake is China’s worst in three decades. The full reach of the damage has yet to be determined. By press time, around 12,000 people were dead.

Some 1,300 rescue and relief troops arrived for the first time at Wenchuan County on Tuesday.

Li Fuhang, a junior at the Chengdu Institute of Sichuan International Studies University (CISISU), could only think of his parents at home in Dujiangyan County. Shortly after the quake, he tried to call them. He couldn’t get through. Fearing the worst, he logged onto QQ, where he learned that his parents had been spared.

His father had been traveling and was 800km from Chengdu. His mom was picking up his cousin from a school in Dujiangyan when she felt the quake and watched as buildings around her began to collapse.

“We chatted briefly,” said Li. “I haven’t heard from them since, but I feel good. I feel like I have been saved from hell.”

Other students are still awaiting news of loved ones who lived near the quake’s epicenter. Wen Zao, an advisor at CISISU, said the school is doing its best to ease their anxiety.

“The advisors have talked to each of them and asked about their family situations,” she said. “We’re helping them contact their families to relieve their worries.”

Meanwhile, students all over the region are waiting to find out what the immediate future will hold. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Education asked schools and universities to adjust their teaching schedules in light of the disaster. By press time, these revised schedules had not been announced.

“Last night, at our university, 20,000 students spent the night on the pitch,” said Zhu, the grad student who was awakened from his afternoon nap. “We don’t want to do it another night, because it is still raining here.”

He admits that he has a lot more to be thankful for than some people. “I feel bad. I heard that more than 10,000 have been killed and that the number keeps growing.

“I have been to Wenchuan before, the people there are nice and friendly, I feel sad…” he said, his voice trailing off into silence.

Notes:
bunk 铺位
epicenter 震中
rubble 碎石
magnitude 量级
trail off 减弱, 变小