The Earthquake in China

I've been getting the feeling that there isn't the proper appreciation in this country for the genuine human tragedy that is unfolding in southwest China in the aftermath of Monday's earthquake.

There seems to be more attention being paid to the outcome of the West Virginia primary -- which appears to have been a foregone conclusion.

The New York Times reports that the death toll (as of Tuesday evening) exceeds 13,000."Officials said they thought the death toll could still climb dramatically higher as workers broke through to the affected areas and the full scope of the disaster became clearer," the Times reports.

A lot of things are still unclear at this point. China's giant pandas in two of the nation's panda reserves were alive, but it wasn't certain how they would get food. According to CNN, heavy road damage may make it difficult to get food to the captive animals.

They say the earthquake measured 7.9 on the Richter scale. That's pretty intense. Compare it, if you will, to the most powerful earthquakes recorded in North America in the last 20 years.

The strongest earthquake I'm aware of in North America since the dawn of the 21st century registered 6.0. The epicenter was in Parkfield, California, along the San Andreas Fault. It occurred in September 2004.

Before that, you'd have to go back 10 years earlier, to January 1994, when Northridge, California, in the Los Angeles area, sustained a 6.7 earthquake. There were 72 deaths, 12,000 injuries and $12.5 billion in damages. The quake also revealed some deficiencies in seismic resistance in modern low-rise apartment construction.

Before that, there was a 7.2 earthquake in Landers, California, in June 1992. It had an aftershock that was 6.4. The 7.2 quake was said to be the largest earthquake to have occurred in the contiguous United States in 40 years.

And before that was the famous "World Series Earthquake" in San Francisco in October 1989. Actually, the epicenter was in Lomo Prieta. It measured 6.9, and it killed 67 people.

It was also the first earthquake to be broadcast live on TV, occurring as Game 3 of the World Series, between Bay Area rivals San Francisco and Oakland, was about to begin.

Some friends of mine were living in the area at the time. The quake struck during the time of day when rush hour has traffic tied up, but many employers let their workers leave early that day so they could attend the game or watch it on TV. As a result, rush hour wasn't heavy at all.

One of my friends, Jane, regularly commuted to and from work along the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland. When the quake struck, I had no idea if she or her husband, Mike, had been injured or killed. In truth, Jane later told me, traffic had been so light that she had been off the bridge for several minutes before the quake struck.

On an ordinary day, she would have been in the middle of the bridge -- which, as TV reports showed a horrified nation, was the scene of deadly drama for those motorists who were unlucky enough to be trapped there (as you can see in the photo on the left).

In spite of the absence of heavy traffic, there were vehicles on that bridge when the quake struck. And some of the occupants of those vehicles were killed.

In fact, one of the main things the Lomo Prieta quake taught seismologists was that roads and bridges in the Bay Area were not built to be as earthquake-resistant as they needed to be.

My friend, Mike, happened to be at home when the quake struck. Their home had survived the legendary quake of 1906, and it survived this one, sustaining only minor damage.

But it was days before I knew how my friends had fared. For about three or four days after the quake, I kept getting busy signals every time I tried to call San Francisco.

As it turned out, I didn't get in touch with them. They got in touch with me. When the phone lines cleared up enough, they started calling everyone they knew. Their call got me up out of bed. Even though I had to be at work at 5 in the morning, I was never so glad to get a phone call in my life!

Apparently, my friends told me later, the quake brought out the gallows' humor in many Bay Area residents. My friends told me there was something of a cottage industry locally for T-shirts bearing the message "I Survived the Pretty Big One."

The strongest quake in recent years actually occurred under water, in the Indian Ocean, on the day after Christmas in 2004. It spawned the tsunami that took the lives of more than 200,000 people. By some estimates, it was the second strongest earthquake in recorded history -- between 9.1 and 9.3.

When the quake struck in China yesterday, I experienced a sense of deja vu. A friend of mine, Kyle, and his wife are visiting in China. I had received an e-mail from Kyle during the weekend so I knew he was in China. But China is a big place, and I didn't know where he was.

So I sent him an e-mail last night asking if he was OK. He responded to my e-mail about 8 hours later.

He reported that he was fine. They had to evacuate the building they were staying in, and being in an earthquake was a new experience for Kyle. But he reported that the trains were running and they were about to leave for Beijing in another hour.

As far as I can tell, Kyle was about 450 miles from the epicenter of the quake, and the train was going to take him farther east. In Beijing, he will be more than 1,000 miles away from the scene of the destruction.

But this is a reminder (as if we needed one) that, when death comes, it won't bother to ask if you've accomplished all your goals, paid off all your debts, resolved all your issues. It won't inquire whether your death will cause pain and/or hardship for those you leave behind.

If it did, I suppose we could all take our cue from Ed Wynn, who played a crafty salesman in an episode from the earliest season of The Twilight Zone in 1959.

Wynn's character thought he could trick "Mr. Death" by getting him to agree that Wynn's character wouldn't be taken until he had fulfilled his lifelong ambition of "making a pitch for the angels." When Mr. Death agreed to the request, Wynn's character promptly decided to retire from sales -- immediately.

His reasoning was that death couldn't take his soul if he never made his pitch.

Mr. Death won in the end, though -- just as it will against the rest of us. Death always wins.

Economic status does not matter. Achievements will not be considered.

Age is no factor -- school children appear to be among the victims of the earthquake in China. In fact, whenever the loss of life can be numbered in the thousands or higher, inevitably you will find pregnant women and young mothers with infant children on the casualty lists.

This isn't the first major earthquake in China this year. Less than two months ago, on Good Friday, a 7.2 struck in a remote mountainous area of the country.

That part of the world has been prone to powerful earthquakes over the years. Monday's quake seems to have something to teach the authorities in that part of the world about being better prepared for the next disaster.

I hope the rest of the world will heed the warnings this disaster has given us.