Survivors' pain concealed 5 months after earthquake
Updated: 2008-10-23 10:47
BEIJING -- When darkness falls, Liu Xiubi brings out simple equipment from her makeshift room to roast mutton shish kebab, a popular snack food, in Guanzhuang Township, Qingchuan County, in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Not far away is the township middle school. Students are having night classes there. When the bell rings, students will come out and surround her snack booth.
"Only when I'm with the children, I can forget all about that," said Liu.
Her "all about that" refers to losing her 15-year-old daughter in the magnitude 8.0 earthquake on May 12. The disaster leveled her Shiba Township home.
"She would be in grade three in middle school if she did not die. She always ranked top in almost all exams and behaved well. I have a second daughter, but I often have to worry about her study."
Liu looks tired. Except for that, she acts the same as other common mothers -- working hard to make a living and chatting about her child's studies.
"Though Liu acts normal, she is suffering great pain under the cover," said Liang Shenglin, an expert with Zhejiang Provincial Psychological Help Team to Sichuan. He talked with the woman for awhile to provide psychological help.
"She keeps on replaying the disastrous earthquake scenes in her mind. When a car drove by, she might take it as an earthquake."
Survivors are haunted by insomnia, depression, anxiety, horror and pain.
"Victims report increasing domestic conflict in families after the quake. They lack trust on things around them," said Wang Yiqiang, head of Zhejiang Psychological Help Team to Sichuan.
They find the victims' pain is going from visible to invisible. For example, they might shed tears at first, but now they just keep it to themselves.
Those who lost family members are recovering with the most difficulty.
About 700 victims are divided into four groups at Menghu (Tiger) Community in Huangshaba resettlement site in Zhuyuan Township in Qingchuan.
"The first, second and third groups have 50 percent victims who lost family members. The fourth has only one family with member loss," said community worker Hou Famin. "Few in the first three groups go out to work as migrant workers. In contrast, most young laborers in the fourth group have gone to cities for temporary jobs."
"Most survivors say they fear further catastrophes and are awaiting them after the earthquake: they might get into typhoons or tsunamis even if they go out of their hometown to work," said Cheng Buqiang, head of the second group in the community.
"Those who stay at the resettlement community mostly are penniless, with no farmland, money or materials to start production with," Hou said. "Another reason they are unwilling to work as migrant workers is worries that they might not get farmland or a house allotted by the government if they were away."
Experts believed three to six months after the earthquake victims might experience peak psychological stress and feel lonely, helpless, depressed or even commit suicide as the initial tension eases after the disaster and public attention might shift to other topics.
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