Tales of grit and survival

Ten years after the Wenchuan earthquake its survivors continue to rebuild their lives.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the brutal, raw numbers that provide the backbone to the story of the Wenchuan earthquake of May 12, 2008 - and in a strange way finally not to truly appreciate the scale of the catastrophe.

We are told that when the magnitude 8 quake shook Sichuan province at 2.28 pm that day, and in the days and weeks that followed, over 69,000 people died, about 17,000 people were left unaccounted for and nearly 375,000 people were injured.

However, like the quake itself - which was felt as far afield as Japan, Thailand and Vietnam - its ripples directly touched millions of residents of Sichuan and beyond. Many of those fortunate enough to escape physical injury and not to lose any of their loved ones, lost their homes and livelihoods, and many lost their minds.

The previous biggest earthquake in China in terms of deaths had been that of Tangshan, Hebei province, in 1976, in which more than 242,000 people perished. Anyone from Tangshan, which marked the 40th anniversary of its catastrophe about two years ago, will tell you that not even four decades can fully wipe away the tears or remove the scars of such an event.

Ten years after the Wenchuan quake on May 8, when hundreds of doctors and volunteers from across China gathered for a ceremony in the town of Yingxiu in Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the quake, they marked a period of silence in memory of the victims. Many held white chrysanthemums in their hands.

This week, near the ruins of Xuankou Middle School, where 43 people lost their lives, it was the vibrant colors of blossoming peonies that held sway. A few hundred meters further on, three-story residential buildings, restaurants and shops have sprouted up, the clearest evidence that for all their pain the inhabitants of Yingxiu have taken huge strides in rebuilding their lives.

Here we tell the stories of four of those people, survivors whose optimism testifies to human resilience in the face of unimaginable adversity.