Flowers for the dead...and the living
Posted: Monday, May 11, 2009 11:30 AM
Filed Under:
Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEICHUAN, China – It looked like a Sunday midday stroll.
Families, couples, and clusters of young students carrying large bouquets and plastic bags containing incense and paper walked under a hazy sun toward a town set in a picturesque river valley.
But this was no weekend country ramble, and the town of Beichuan was no longer really a town.
 |
| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Visitors to Beichuan pay their respects to the dead. |
A ghostly presence now, Beichuan was leveled on May 12 last year, when a deadly earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck western China.
So many buildings in this town collapsed, and landslides shed boulders the size of houses onto the main road, sealing off the town, that that it took rescuers days before they could assess the actual scope of the damage.
When they did, it was discovered that half of Beichuan's population of 30,000 was killed or missing.
"Our friend's parents died there," said Wu Qian, a young woman who, like her three friends, carried a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums. "They're still buried in there. We came to bring flowers."
Wu and her friends were joined by thousands of other people who had flocked to Beichuan once they heard the town – after being shut off to the rest of the world for nearly a year – would be opened for four days this week.
Most of the crowds this weekend appeared to be relatives or friends of the victims. Clustered in small groups, they set off firecrackers or burned incense or paper money to pay their respects to the victims.
Some were tourists. "I wanted to come see this," said a young woman named Wang Jiyi.
 |
| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Overlooking the town of Beichuan, one of the worst-hit areas in Sichuan province. |
Beichuan looks much like it did right after the quake and the authorities are planning to keep it that way.
As a new Beichuan is being built nearby, the old town will be preserved as it is – a living museum, as it were, to honor the dead.
Slideshow: China marks the one year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake
Slideshow: Images from China's 2008 catastrophic quake
Officials blunt activism set off by China quake
