Zhao Haiqing (right) confers with the leader of a medical team from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Zhao Haiqing confers with the rescue forces from all walks of life, including fellow residents and soldiers.

Secretary Zhao contends with the transit of large shipments of disaster-relief materials and the resettlement of victims.

Zhao Haiqing (center), secretary of the Chenjiaba Township Party Committee, heads up a meeting on the reconstruction of Chenjiaba.

The day after the Quake, while watching the news on TV, I was deeply moved by the man being interviewed. He had lost his parents and son, and had heard nothing from his wife. During the segment, a call came in on the intercom. He wiped away his tears and rushed off to handle another emergency.
He is Zhao Haiqing, secretary of the CPC committee of Chenjiaba Township in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province. Journalists had been trying to reach him on his mobile phone for several days, but the only answer was, “Sorry, the subscriber you dialed is power off.”
His location and safety was becoming a concern for many in the media. We of this publication were no exception, so we set off to find Zhao.
Chenjiaba is located 18 kilometers north of the county seat of Beichuan. After the earthquake, the highway between the town and the county seat was blocked several times, and communications with the outside world was intermittent.
On May 23, 2008, we arrived at a tract of land largely in ruins.
Heroism
Transiting a just cleared hillside road, we saw piles of sliding rocks and gravel. “Where is Secretary Zhao?” We asked the local people, upon arriving at Chenjiaba. “He is over there discharging disaster-relief materials.” When our truck arrived at the location, we still didn’t see him. “He is there, see the tent?” Someone said. At last, we recognized his face among the crowd.
The well-built Secretary Zhao Haiqing had the legs of his trousers rolled up, and his shoes were covered in dust. Yet, he looked somewhat scholarly, with a pair of glasses framing his tanned face.
The sides of the roads in town were lined by corn stocks. Rescuers from all parts of the country sat on two benches, discussing in varying accents the most urgent matter at hand, settlement of the victims who had just returned. The permanent residents would be around 8,000. Among its 18 villages, only three could accommodate the returned. Besides available space, there were such problems as a shortage of tents and food and the capability of epidemic prevention and fire protection.
“Priority should be given to the safety of those still alive,” Zhao frowned. “That’s right,” everybody agreed, and people offered counsel, one after another.
“Secretary Zhao,” someone called during the discussion, to ask him to verify the number of houses, schools, and hospitals due for reconstruction. Zhao was constantly surrounded. Someone gave him instructions and asked him to handle various urgent matters, others waited for his instructions.
A Beichuan County official in the crowd spoke highly of Zhao Haiqing, “A secretary like him is terrific! He has been working like this for over ten days, and that explains why everything down here is in order. Those who are still fighting are heroes.”
Service
“He’s been working here since the Quake struck,” Zhang, a local official, said. “Secretary Zhao is not a native here, and all his family members are living in Beichuan County. His parents and child were killed during the earthquake, and his wife, badly wounded under a collapsed house, has been transferred to Chongqing for care.”
The crowd dropped off. Zhao Haiqing could hardly hold back his tears, as he spoke to us. “My niece is gone, too. There were two boys in my family. Our kids were in the kindergarten at the foot of a hill. The sliding rocks buried them, only a few were rescued. There are now almost no complete families in Beichuan.”
“I miss them so much. The night before I burned incense and paper facing my hometown and kowtowed to my beloved parents.” Tears rolled down his face as he choked back sobs. “It’s true that I haven’t gone and looked for them. My wife is in the hospital in Chongqing, and I haven’t gone to see her yet.”
Standing in front of us was no longer the Party Secretary Zhao, like a commanding general, but a son full of sorrow, a father in distress, and a husband full of guilt. He didn’t scream, he didn’t tell us his story in broken language. The tears rolled silently down his face.
It didn’t last long. The resolute Zhao sprang back. “I’m sure they understand me up there in heaven!” He wiped away the tears.
“As an official,” he continued, “I bear great responsibility. I’m needed here. Facing such a catastrophe, I’ll contribute as much as I can so that I can achieve my greatest extent. Moreover,” he stopped for a little while and looked around, “I’m here to encourage my colleagues. When I stay, who’ll dare to leave? All township cadres have only one day off to let their families know that they are safe, to see their families who are still alive, and to get back to work. Just imagine what will happen to a place of more than 10,000 people without leadership!”
“Over the last few days, I’ve seen many people from my hometown and found that many of them have lost the families.” His eyes misted with motion at the sight of people coming and going around, and he looked determined. “We are native of Beichuan. Though suffering a heavy loss, I have seen few crushed. Nothing can beat us easily.”
Dedication
During our stay in Chenjiaba, citizens told us of the tragedy. And it’s not hard for us to imagine Zhao Haiqing and his colleagues rushing about Chenjiaba, suddenly turned to ruins.
There was just a noise at the very beginning, and then the houses shook. “Earthquake, earthquake!” Zhao and his colleagues ran out of the township government building. The air was heavy with smoke of dust. “The whole hill [near the government building] slid!” Then “Boom!” Right behind them the first floor of the office building crashed, and the second floor then fell on top of the first.
As soon as they ran to a safer place, Zhao took stock of his colleagues—only one was dead.
Zhao and the men knew what they had to do. Some went to seek out and rescue people from under collapsed structures; others took charge of evacuating the residents. At age 36, Secretary Zhao showed respect to every cadre, young and old, who stood with him at this moment. None hesitated. None held back.
The first thing they did was to rescue students. Not long ago, a middle school took down a dangerous building, and a class had moved to the old meeting room in the government building. More than 50 students were in class when the quake struck. “We dared not waste a single minute, digging with shovels and our hands,” Zhao recalled. “And we saved the lives of more than 40 students.” Fortunately, all the buildings at the primary and middle schools stood firm, and most students were evacuated under the guidance of their teachers. The cadres soon moved them elsewhere, and that very night, they salvaged food and water from the shattered stores and delivered the supplies to seniors and children.
The next day, when they made sure the epicenter in Wenchuan and Beichuan from the radios with weak signal, a decision was made to transfer the residents to places around Guixi and Jiangyou.
Zhao was quite familiar with the local conditions, since he had served as the township head in Guixi for three years and as the Party secretary of Chenjiaba for another three years. People walked away from their broken homeland in rain and aftershocks, while rocks still occasionally rolled from hills. None of the 800 teachers and students from the primary schools of Chenjiaba were injured or killed during the jolt and their move afterwards.
For two days after the quake, Chenjiaba remained disconnected from the rest of the world. The county was completely isolated and cut off from help.
Zhao Haiqing went to the municipal government of Mianyang. For six years he worked for the youth league committee of Beichuan County, and he was acquainted with the staff at the youth league committee of Mianyang City, who helped him contact doctors from the Fourth Military Medical University—the reinforcements.
It was that day in Jiangyou that his mobile phone reconnected and he learned that his parents and son were killed, and his wife was injured. He received no answer when he tried to call old acquaintances, no matter how many times he redialed.
The rescue work is still underway, and more challenges of reconstruction lie ahead. Like the moment when the catastrophe fell upon his town, he could not tear himself away from work, to care for his own family. He could not afford to disregard his duty—to sink into grief and concern for his personal loss.
Bidding farewell, Secretary Zhao disappeared into the crowd.