A child’s life remembered
Child’s backpack, dictionary and crushed soccer ball recovered from the earthquake that hit China’s Sichuan Province on 12 May 2008, and on display at a mini memorial in the Visitors’ Centre in Shuimo Town.
From the display, I think all three objects might have been recovered near one another, and belonged to the same child. I said a prayer for the child’s family when I got back to my hotel room.
Shuimo, one of many towns destroyed by the earthquake, was reconstructed only two years later, and is now held as a model of earthquake reconstruction. Participants of Wolong Panda Club’s 7th Hug My Baby event were taken there for a visit on 19 September 2011.
This is my second close-up encounter with the earthquake. While flying home from my September 2010 trip, I sat in the same row with an earthquake survivor, and had a brief chat with him. I wrote about it here.
