Strong Pig, now plastic, meets museum visitors

People visiting the Jianchuan Museum in Dayi county of Sichuan province on Thursday had a pleasant surprise. They met Zhu Jianqiang, the legendary Strong Pig that survived the May 12, 2008, Wenchuan earthquake. She died in June at age 14 — which is old for a pig — and was preserved by plastination.

She was turned into plastic in every detail through technology from the Mystery of Life Museum in Dalian, Liaoning province.

Strong Pig went on display in conjunction with the 14th anniversary of the quake, a museum official said. She had survived on charcoal and rainwater for 36 days after the quake and became a symbol of hope.

After being adopted by the Jianchuan Museum, she met visitors from far and wide who wanted to catch a glimpse of the four-legged icon of the biggest earthquake since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Ten provinces, including Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi and Yunnan, were hit.

The magnitude-8.0 Wenchuan quake which was triggered at 2:28 pm on May 12, 2008, killed 69,226 people and left 17,923 missing.

To mark the 14th anniversary, the Chengdu Center of Earthquake Early Warning Technology Research of China Earthquake Administration, the Institute of Care-Life in Chengdu and the Emergency Management Bureau of Chengdu High-Tech Zone jointly launched China's first cross-provincial and cross-industry synchronous earthquake early warning exercise in conjunction with schools, communities, office areas and a chemical plant scattered across Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi and Yunnan provinces at 2:28 pm on Wednesday.

The exercise simulated a temblor in Wenchuan county of Sichuan and its effects on Chengdu and neighboring Yunnan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It showed how people could escape to safety 10 to 164 seconds before seismic waves arrived, said Wang Tun, head of the Institute of Care-Life.

A real-time earthquake early warning system has been installed on TV sets and mobile phones in many parts of the country, and people can use it to save themselves in case of an earthquake, he said.

The system provides warnings seconds after a quake and can save lives because the warnings are transmitted via radio waves traveling much faster than seismic waves in the earth. Radio waves travel at 300,000 km per second, while seismic waves travel at 3 to 6 km per second.

Chen Huizhong, a senior research fellow with the China Earthquake Administration's Institute of Geophysics, said that means people in nearby areas have a chance to escape before feeling a quake.