REGIONAL> news
Chengdu shakes off earthquake
By Huang Zhiling, Diao Ying and Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-07 20:45

Intel's $525 million encapsulation plant in Chengdu has a staff of some1,600 people and plans to expand.

During his recent visit to Chengdu on June 22, Intel's Chairman Craig Barrett said his company's plans have not changed. Intel will hire another 1,000 employees in Chengdu.

By July 1, enterprises from outside Chengdu had signed contracts worth more than 65 billion yuan with the city, Zhou said.

City's hope

That should please Zhou's boss Mayor Ge, a 52-year-old native from Shanghai who terms Chengdu a vital economic hub and an inland city with great potential for economic growth as China promotes development of western areas.

To reach the goal, Ge said the city should be a paradise for the old and young but a battlefield for the middle-aged.

"Chengdu people like playing very much," said Ge in an interview with China Daily four days before the quake. "People in a rising city like Chengdu should work extra hours," he said.

But the performance of locals in Chengdu has changed his view of the locals, who appeared heroic and public-spirited at their own expense after the quake.

Chen Hongliang, a 28-year-old armed police officer in Pixian, a county under Chengdu's administration, and his 27-year-old bride Lan Lan, an Internet bar owner, were in their apartment in Dujiangyan writing invitations for people to attend their wedding when the quake struck.

Bricks fell like rain inside their apartment. When the shaking stopped Lan was angry to find her husband had left without her knowing.

When he returned 20 minutes later, she did not want to talk with him because she thought he had fled. Chen thought his wife was quiet because her Internet bar was damaged.

Only after the angry Lan went to his office in neighboring Pixian county a week later did her husband's colleagues tell her the truth.

After the quake hit, Chen saw from a window that a nearby kindergarten building was likely to collapse. He rushed to the building 30 times and carried away 60 children.

Chen didn't tell anyone about his heroism. His colleagues did not know it until the parent of a child Chen saved told them the story.

On the evening of May 19, the Sichuan Seismological Bureau broadcast an announcement on radio and TV saying a strong aftershock measuring between magnitude 6 and 7 would strike soon.

Zeng Yong, the 39-year-old deputy chief of the department of orthopedics in the city's No 2 hospital was lying in bed. He thought as a leading official in his department he had to be on duty in the hospital after he heard the announcement.

There was 5,400 yuan in his dresser drawer, so he gave his wife Chen Longqiong and their 11-year-old son Shuohui each 1,800 yuan and headed for the hospital. Before he left, he told his son to go to his grandparents for shelter if the hospital collapsed and killed him.

Fortunately, the strong aftershock did not come and the trio was unharmed.

Many similar stories convinced Ge that people in Chengdu know how to enjoy life in times of peace and show their responsibility in times of a disaster.