Eight years on, Sichuan earthquake survivors remember
An untouched middle school and a ‘5D theatre’ symbolise the terror and aftermath
For eight years, time has stood still at Xuankou Middle School in the town of Yingxiu in Wenchuan county.
The school was destroyed on May 12, 2008 by a magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated the Sichuan province county at 2.28pm, killing more than 80,000 people.
Schoolchildren were among the heaviest casualties, prompting heartbroken parents to complain about “tofu” buildings – shoddily built facilities with insufficient reinforcement and substandard concrete that collapsed easily, burying entire classrooms full of young students.
Mainland authorities decided to keep the Xuankou Middle School as it was – battered and
reduced to rubble – so that people would remember what happened that day.
“I was in my car parked on a street and there was suddenly a loud bang. My car flipped over,” survivor Li Xueqiang said yesterday. “I couldn’t see anything for two minutes because there was dust everywhere. The road started to crack and steam was shooting out of it, throwing me up into the air two to three metres high.”