An abandoned holiday village

As we finally left the mountains, we passed a huge articulated truck on its slow way northwards. The thought of the journey through the mountains ahead of it made me flinch.

When I first heard the news of the number of deaths among the road workers I thought it unreasonably high. Now I can see that it has been mercifully low – so far. These steep mountainsides will remain unsound for a long time to come. Aftershocks will provoke further land and rockfalls, and there will be unstable areas subject to random and unpredictable collapse through the action of wind, weather, or simply time.

This fragile road will be dangerous for a long time to come

We visited this place under the least threatening of circumstances. Further to the north there is much worse to be seen. Even so it was an intimidating and chastening experience. I cannot imagine how it must have been for those who first fought to push their way back into the mountains, working in the dark under unremitting torrents of rain and through the relentless aftershocks of the earthquake, while rocks and mud crashed around them, wiping out their efforts and their colleagues. To fight on in such conditions, as they did, calls for a rare courage and strength of purpose.

(China.org.cn May 27, 2008)