Sichuan Earthquake

The Earthquake hit on the 12 May 2008. The initial reports did not tell the seriousness of the quake. Or the tens of thousands of deaths where schools and hospitals were destroyed.

The tremor was felt as far away as Hong Kong, Vietnam and Thailand. We did not feel the tremors in Tai'an.

The earthquake was quite devastating. In a Country with a population of 1.3B there is little regard for life. However this situation was quite different. China has a 1 child policy to curb the population problem. Due to this situation some families have been completely wiped out. I wondered whether this would encourage the government to change their policy.

This was not the case. What they have done is given those families with only 1 child who lost their child in the earthquake the opportunity to have another child, but they must register. The other option is for those children who are now orphans they can be adopted by the families who have lost their child. After this those children will be offered to the remainder of the world for adoption.

We had 3 days of mourning for the earthquake victims and their families in Sichuan Province. Everyday for the 3 days we had 3 minutes silence at the time the quake hit. Flags were at half mast. Every entertainment venue was closed ie movie theaters, KTV's etc. If you went onto the internet you were diverted to the quake site, Cable TV was also diverted to the quake channel, in fact every channel was the quake channel.