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Li shixiong was my boss. He was the vice-chief of the emergency management department of Sichuan province. The head of our division was removed from his position last week for releasing "sensitive information to the public". Shixiong had to oversee our information management division until a new head is appointed.
When I walked out of my department, the sun directly shined into my eyes. It was too bright. I had to half close my eyes. I followed Shixiong to his car. Shixiong drove a black Beijing jeep. His car is alway clean and flowless, just like him. As soon as I got on this car, I asked him: how bad it is?
"We were told it is a magenitude 7.8 earth quake. It happened in sichuan. We still don't know about the exact location of the center, most likely wenchuan. It could be only 100 km away from here. The anticipated death could range frong 10,000 to 200,000 (Don't panic. You can get real death number here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake). It happened three hours ago. We don't have a lot of information. I am counting on you to get some data."
My heart stopped beating for several seconds: 200,000 people. That many people? All the disaster scenes of Tangshan earthquake quickly flushed back to my brian. The pain was growing in my stomach: this isn't happening.
I tried to breath, and started to make a work plan in my head: What do we need? What do we have? The first thing is to login to the earthquake data center, and find the exact location of the center of the quake. We also need maps showing population density, schools, transportation, waters....What else? The geological profiles and the elevation contour maps. What else? Think quickly....remote sensing image..Calm down...What else? Cities, townships....
I have two analysts. Qingqing is specialized in handling environmental information. She will need to put all the environmental information together. Huajiang will collect demographic data. Are they at the office? They must be absent. If they are, it would have been them picking me up.
I asked shixiong to confirm my guess: are qingqing and huajiang in the office? Shixiong said: yes.
..why are you here?
.. I am here is because you don't have a cellphone and a TV. No body at your age will spend their vocation sleeping. Nobody will sleep in the afternoon. Everybody felt that quake, except you. You know you could have been dead.
.. If you are ever conscious about the amount of works you assigned to us, you should know why I need more sleep. But my question is why you? You can send anybody.
.. This is not the first time I came here to pick you up.
.. But shouldn't you be in the office? This is a major disaster.
.. I have sent three teams to go the field collect information. I knew troops will come to rescue people. The nearest troop is in Dazhou. I have sent a team to find out the possible path for the rescue team. I also send a team to try to get into wenchuan. I also send a team to go to Mianyang through meishang valley.
..Meishang valley? There is a large aquifer in Meishang mountain, which may provide lubrication to cause landslide. You didn't just send a team over there.
Silence.
..Who did you send there?
.. The best people we have. Dongming, Changfeng, Songjia, Honglei, and...............Xinyun.....
... No...not Xinyun.....Not him...............
All my blood flushed into my brain. I cannot think, and cannot breath.
....You have to call them back. Any aftershock can cause landslide. They will all die over there.
.... Too late, I have sent them over there for about two hours. They probably already arrived the valley. I believe some cellphone signal towers were damaged. We have been unable to reach them after they left for about an hour.
...You should now drive over there now. We need to stop them.
Those words just jumped out of my mouth. I knew it is impossible to find them.
Xinyun and I, we are two hours away.....Two hours away....
I was a cartographic engineer. I had to deal with "distance" all the time. This word has become incredibly profound to me. Chendou is 2,000 km away from Beijing. I visited Beijing twice a year to attend meetings. My parents lived about 1km away from my apartment. But I visited them only once a year at the spring festival (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year). At that moment, Xinyun was only 2 hours away from me. But that may be the distance between death and live......I was only 0.5 m away from Shixiong. But we always lived in different worlds.......
My tears were running out of my eyes... I heard Shixiong's words: Calm down, I knew you always do the right thing.
I tried to hold back my tears. The pain was full of my chest.
..You sent them to die. You knew it. Is this about me? About me with Xinyun? You cannot do this. You came to pick me up, and let me know this...What kind of human being are you?...
..I think I need to make this clear to you. This country needs you. So calm down. After we finish our jobs, we discuss who you should be friend with.
My heart was full of pain. I felt it had been broke into pieces, and I knew I can never repair it....
When we arrived the office building. I run to the mapping room. Qingqing and huajiang were seated in front of TV. Their eyes were watering. I dared not to look at the screen. The reports spoke very very fast. I tried not to listen to it.
I said: Qingqing turn off the TV. We need to start work. Do we still have internet?
Qingqing replied: Please, let me watch. My brother lives in Miangyang. Please.
I then said: Huajiang turn off the TV. I gave you two some important assignments. Qingqing, if you care about your brother, you want our rescue troops arrive there as early as possible. I need to collect all the environmental data available there. This quake affects a lot of area. You need to rescale the data, so we can retrieve information at a large scale. Huajiang, you need to collect the cities, townships boundaries. You need to find maps on the transportation systems. I need to you do some quick statistics.
After giving them assignments, I quickly turned on my messenger, and email. Thank god. Huaqing is online. She run a small business in Beijing. We were one of her customers. She was also my best friend. As soon as I log on, Huaqiang sent me a message: are you alright? I typed quickly: yes. I need your help. I need you to write a script to collect information on the earthquake from the major science website related to earthquake. I am sending you a list of websites, and password to their data. I need you to send me the information back in a real time fashion.
I quickly composed an email to wenyan. Wenyan was also my best friend. She was a college professor in the United States, with a specialty in remote sensing. I needed her to find remote sensing data for me. It was 6am her time. Wenyan, I beg you, please wake up and check your email......Only after a minute, Wenyan replied: I am on it.....Take care...
On May 12th 2008, Huaqing, wenyan, and me, worked together...After Wenyan said goodbye to us nine years ago in the Shanghai airport, we were all stayed in different corners of the earth. But at this moment, we were all together..like in the same room..There were tears in our eyes, and our hearts were beating in the same rhythms. Just like 19 years ago, 1989....
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