As I see itHow China’s steady erosion of media freedom rose from Sichuan’s ruins

Name: China marks 10-year anniversary of Sichuan earthquake
Uploaded: 2021-05-11T08:57:36.000Z
Duration: 1 min 28 s
Description: China marks 10-year anniversary of Sichuan earthquake

Journalists and activists hoped the 2008 earthquake would open a crack in censorship

Instead, it was the start of more than a decade of tight control of traditional and online outlets

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Schools were reduced to rubble when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Beichuan county in Sichuan province 13 years ago, killing tens of thousands of people. Photo: AP

Shi Jiangtao

Published: 4:57pm, 11 May 2021Updated: 10:31pm, 11 May 2021

Thirteen years ago on Wednesday, the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan was struck by the most devastating earthquake in decades, resulting in 87,000 deaths.

I still remember vividly standing in a persistent drizzle at the quake-flattened Beichuan Middle School on the early afternoon of May 13, 2008, nearly 24 hours after the disaster hit. The signs of rapid destruction were everywhere – a sea of fallen trees, mud and debris lay where three school buildings, each five to seven stories high, once stood. Parents clambered over piles of rubble, desperately pulling out bodies and calling out the names of their loved ones. As many as 1,600 students were killed at the only high school in Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit in the calamity.

While the Sichuan earthquake took a heavy toll on life, property and the environment, it also saw a brief period of unusual media and online activism in China, which some described as opening a crack in Chinese censorship.

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China marks 10-year anniversary of Sichuan earthquake

As mainland authorities scrambled to come up with a disaster response strategy, Chinese journalists, bloggers and activists quickly began to question whether corruption and shoddy construction were to blame for the collapse of schools across the quake zone.

Some initially believed the rare openness was partly due to the Communist Party’s concern about its external image just weeks ahead of the Beijing Olympics, raising hopes for an improvement in the country’s tightly controlled media environment.

However, it soon turned out that such optimism was misplaced as the authorities banned media reports on the “tofu” building projects and clamped down on activists and citizen journalists.

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Journalists and activists hoped the 2008 earthquake would open a crack in censorship Instead, it was the start of more than a decade of tight control of traditional and online outlets

Journalists and activists hoped the 2008 earthquake would open a crack in censorship

Instead, it was the start of more than a decade of tight control of traditional and online outlets