Breaking the news of a tragedy
rushed to the chaos and devastation in Sichuan. Here he gives his personal account about the contradictions of an excellent news story that thrives in death, loss and grief.
Right place, right time. I’d hurriedly been contacted by my news agency as the world was struggling to come to grips comprehending the utter devastation caused by the magnitude 7.9-earthquake. As chance would have it, I’d been attending a wedding in mainland China not far away. The message was simple. Get to Sichuan province as quickly as possible. Baring in mind the overwhelming horror that so many millions of people have faced, it may be a grotesque observation to note, but truth be told, I just thought to myself right place, right time. The journalist is after all, drawn to disaster like a bee to honey.
And chaos and news make happy bedfellows. Once on site, the stories just shoot themselves. No need to try and find clever angles, different ways of peppering or spicing up the story, all you need to do is go out there, keep your camera steady and make sure the red record button is flashing. Capturing the horror on camera, be it the ghostly rubble that was once a school, the ruins that were once people’s homes, crushed bodies that were once family members, is straightforward. The story tells itself.
Miraculous tales of survival are also captured on film and soundtracked. And on a CCTV channel near you. Some of the miracle stories are anecdotal. One colleague described to me how a cameraman friend of his pulled out a young man buried under the remains of a hut on the road to Wenchuan. He just happened to stop by the side of the road to change the tape in the camera when he heard the man crying for help. Right place, right time.
Other stories were grimmer. A local freelance cameraman arrived back at our Chengdu base from Beichuan. He looked pale and shell-shocked as he recalled the moment that he put down his camera to help a father carry the dead bodies of his mother, wife and child away from the rubble that was once his family home.
While the devastation is communal - how, why and when grief hits you is intensely personal. For me, it was on my fourth day in earthquake territory. I was driving through Mainyang late at night, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people were in the streets. Many of them were camped near the train station, most had lost their homes, belongings, and nearly all that was precious to them. I got out of the car, to take stock, observe and get a better feel. An eerie and almost apocalyptic silence hung in the air. So many people, so little noise. The silence was deafening.
The truth is as a journalist you can feel strangely safe and secure in extreme
situations. You often have more support and people looking out for you than in your life back home. You’re under the impression of being fully connected to everything and thus in control, you’ll be among the first to know if an epidemic were to strike, or a dam were to burst. You’re in a community of experienced colleagues who’ve seen it all before, who are looking out for you and have always come out of these situations relatively unscathed. More or less.
Yet we all have moments when the horror reaches out and touches our soul. Pictures, photos, words and countless eyewitness accounts, all to be forever etched in the annals of Sichuan history have chronicled the damage and death. Back in Europe, I wonder how those quiet survivors from that night in Mianyang will fare in the days, weeks, and years to follow. And I try to understand how and why wrong place, wrong time, for so many was right time, right place, for me.