by Xinhua Writer Zhou Yan

The catastrophic May 12 earthquake has prompted an outburst of humanitarian feeling among the Chinese and innumerable individuals have offered to foster or adopt quake orphans.

Their desire to help the young victims through their trauma is certainly cherished and much needed after the most devastating natural disaster in China in three decades.

The 8.0-magnitude tremor that jolted southwest China's Sichuan Province last Monday had killed 41,353 people and left 32,666 missing as of Wednesday. At least 70 children were orphaned and more than 4,000 others are yet to find their parents, who, we hope, are still alive and are looking for the children too.

While many families wish to adopt quake orphans, those parents who were deprived of children must not be forgotten either.

Remember those school children, under the ruins of collapsed classrooms, who died clutching pens, books or test papers?

Most of them were born in the 1990s and were their parents' only child. Those parents, if alive, will grieve for a lifetime.

A poem by an anonymous author, entitled Hold onto mom, my child, spread widely among Chinese netizens after the quake. "Come, my child, hold onto mom's hands. The road to Heaven is too dark..." "In the days without me, give your love to other children...." The imagined dialogue between a mother and her dead child moved millions.

Not to mention the elderly lady whose husband was lost when they were evacuated from their hard-hit town in Beichuan County. Their family of eight was reduced to two when the couple were pulled from the rubble of their house.

"If you meet my husband, Old Jia, 81, please tell him I'm waiting for him at the toll gate," she'd tell every passerby.

This story, told by a reporter in his blog, pulled the heartstrings of many Chinese. We are all eager to find out whether the woman and her husband reunited, but we are more concerned for their well-being in the long run. Will they spend the rest of their lives in a welfare home, get decent food, clothing, medication, showers and live with dignity? Will there always be someone to give a helping hand and a comforting word whenever they are in need?

"Never give up". The Chinese have kept saying after the quake. Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army and Armed Police have kept searching the ruins at the risk of their own lives. Miracle survivals were reported almost 200 hours after the quake.

As time goes by, we continue to pray for more rescues, more family reunions and, more importantly, the best possible arrangements for every survivor.

Civil affairs authorities said more than 40 elderly survivors were deprived of their families in the quake and some were handicapped themselves. The figure will rise with the death toll, which soars by more than 1,000 daily.

Unlike the orphans, these elderly men and women are not likely to be adopted -- I doubt if any elderly person would choose to live under the roof of a complete stranger. But there's a lot more our society can do for them.

While the government and charity organizations should provide better social security services to these people, individuals are also liable to give a helping hand, by making donations, taking care of them or just spending time to chat with them, as if they were our own parents.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2008)