Oscar nominated HBO Documentary
On May 12, 2008, a catastrophic earthquake of magnitude 8 on the Richter scale hit Sichuan Province in rural China, killing nearly 70,000 people, including 10,000 children.
Immediately after the earthquake, Ming Xia, professor of political science at the College of Staten Island went to his hometown as part of a film crew for the HBO Documentary, China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears Of Sichuan Province.
This photo essay is in the words of Ming Xia, and captures his experiences while working on the film. (photos by Ming Xia)
On May 12th, 2008, a catastrophic earthquake hit Sichuan Province, Southwestern China, where I grew up. On May 23, I went back to work with a crew of filmmakers to make a documentary movie for HBO, “China’s Unnatural Disaster, The Tears of Sichuan Province.” I was standing in front of a tent city in Mianzhu, Sichuan.
Two other producers, Jon Alpert (also one of the directors, a 15-time Emmy-award winner) and Michelle Mi (a filmmaker from Shanghai), were standing on ruins and gazing at the scale of destruction.
Other two producers, Matthew O’Neill (also one of the directors) and Peter Kwong (professor of sociology from Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY), were interviewing the parents whose school children were killed at Xiang’e High School in a township near the city of Dujiangyan.
At the township of Hanwang, Mianzhu, the township government building collapsed. A car was left on the pile of rubble.
In the township of Hongbai, Shifang, a mother and her daughter were trying to rescue some clothes from their collapsed house.
The house of a farmer family, owned by our star in the movie (We call her “Blondie”), was also completely destroyed.
A Taoist temple in Shifang was severely damaged. Many statutes of gods in the courtyard were knocked down on ground.
Many older residential buildings built in the 1970s and early 1980s were leveled off in Hanwang, a township hit hard by the earthquake due to its location on the fault line.
The soldiers were sent to the quake zone to build tents for the victims in Tianqi Village, Mianzhu.
Against the mountain striped by landslides, tents were built for soldiers (the green ones) for the civilians (the blue ones) in Hongbai Township, Shifang.
A huge tent city provided temporary home to tens and thousands of refugees in the City of Mianzhu.
The Hangwang Central Primary School collapsed, where many bodies of school children were not dug out more than ten days after the quake. A Dutch search team with their search dogs was working on the collapsed building.
In the city of Dujiangyan, the teaching building of Xinjian Primary School also collapsed and killed hundreds of students.
In Hanwang, the Dongqi High School also collapsed.
The dormitory building of Dongqi High School was severely damaged.
In the township of Fuxin, Mianzhu, the teaching building of Fuxin Second Primary School collapsed and killed 127 students. Looking over the piles of slabs and bricks, the slogan reads: “Working together to Build a Beautiful and Nurturing Campus.”
The parents at the Fuxin Second PS built a memorial for their children. More than one hundred pictures were placed there.
The framed pictures of school children (most 5th and 6th graders) who were killed by the collapsed building in the township of Fuxin, Mianzhu.
A grandpa was holding the picture of his grandson, Fu Hao, while Matt O’Neill was filming.
On the June 1st Children’s Day, the parents and some volunteers decorated the memorial at the Fuxin Second PS to commemorate the holiday for the children in heaven.
A boy, who luckily escaped from the collapsing building at the Fuxin Second PS, was standing in front of the newly built grave of his cousin.
On the hill slope in the township of Hongbai, Shifang, hundreds of new graves buried the students from the township’s High School and Primary School. Locals said that the township lost its entire generation of children.
Jon Alpert was filming, as many parents were still searching for their children’s graves, since many of them were migrant workers away from home as the earthquake hit. The new graves reach all the way to the highway downhill.
Construction workers from outside were paying their condolence in front of the memorial with school bags piling up at the Fuxin Second PS.
Upset by the insensitive officials who did not admit any wrongdoings in the school constructions, the parents at the Fuxin Second PS marched on the provincial capital (70 miles away) to demand justice for their children.
Zhang Xuemei, a young mother and a shop owner, lost her daughter—a dancing star in the local dancing school and became an active leader of the march.
A woman dressed in Qiang minority nationality outfit, led the march and was flanked by policemen.
Mr. Jiang Guohua, the Party Secretary and the Chairman of the City Congress in Mianzhu, was kneeling down to beg the parents not to continue the march. The banner carried by the parents reads: “We Believe that the Party and the Government will Give Us Justice!”
The marching parents ignored the kneeling Party Secretary, or humiliated him, and continued their march.
In response to the protesting parents, the Executive Deputy Mayor Zhang Jinming paid a visit to the Fuxin campus and was mobbed by parents and villagers with all kinds of questions.
At Xinjian Primary School, the parents were inspired by the march and protest organized by the Fuxin parents, started to organize their own petition and protest.
At Juyuan High School in a township near the city of Dujiangyan, the soldiers were dispatched to guard the collapsed school building and to keep off the parents, onlookers, and journalists, as the digging for bodies was going on.