Blog: the detail in the dust

Lindsey Hilsum blogs on reporting in the aftermath of China's earthquake, which is feared to have killed up to 20,000 people.

"It's the details we can't always catch on camera which stick in my mind..."

The man walking out of the rubble of Beichuan carrying only a saxophone. The youth with his hands chained behind his back, being marched up the hill by the police. "He's a looter", said the people. "He should be shot."

And Pu Wen Bing, who befriended us when we shared a ride in the back of a cattle truck.

The police wouldn't let us take our own vehicle to Beichuan so we ended up hitch-hiking, and then walking the last hour from where the road had been demolished by the quake.

On the way out, we climbed into a truck, joining a couple of dozen refugees leaving the ruined town.

Pu had run a small restaurant in Beichuan. It collapsed in the quake, and he now has nothing but the tatty jeans and jacket he's wearing, but he considers himself a lucky man.


Channel 4 News cameraman Julian Hadden filming in Beichuan

When the quake struck, he was queuing outside the municipal building, waiting to get a new driving licence. His wife managed to rush out of the restaurant before it fell.

That morning, his five-year-old daughter twisted the arm of her indulgent granny so much that she took her to buy a new necklace - which meant she was late, so she was not there when it collapsed, and was one just ten children from her nursery to survive.

Pu had returned to see if any of the money he'd kept in his apartment was still there - but of course he couldn't find it in the rubble. He was penniless.

But he said his relative had sent them train fares, so he was off to Xian, a day and a night's journey away, to start a new life.

The couple we met in the rubble of Beichuan were not so fortunate. They had come to search for his parents, who had been looking after their four-year-old daughter. They tried to persuade the soldiers to dig in the rubble, but there was no hope - they were buried far too deeply.

I will never forget how the tears ran down her face as she held up the fingers of her hand. "We were five in our family, now we are only two."

As they walked away, her husband tenderly put his arm around her waist and they stumbled together across the twisted metal and concrete.


Army rescue workers carrying an injured survivor

The grief is overwhelming - the father in the tweedy jacket outside the wreckage of Beichuan Middle School as body after body was pulled out.

"I miss him so much," he wailed, despairing of finding even the corpse of his fourteen-year-old son.

The shell-shocked man in an old army jacket who described in unbearable detail how one of his son's hands was sticking out of the rubble of his school, how he passed the boy a wet towel, and he said "Don't worry, Dad, I'm OK," before quietly dying.

But despair is rapidly turning to anger. "Why did this school which was built only ten years ago collapse, while that much older building is still standing?" asked one father.

Corruption in building contracts is common in China.

To cut costs, contractors frequently add more sand to the concrete mixture, which makes the material weak and crumbly.


Cameraman Julian Hadden filming in Beichuan

For the moment, the victims of the Sichuan earthquake need shelter, food, medicine and water. But soon they will need answers.

Who built the schools? Why did so many collapse? Were the contracts corrupt?

If their questions are not addressed, any praise the Chinese government gets for the speed of their disaster relief programme will be eclipsed.

Send this article by email

Recipient's email address

Your name

More on this story

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.