May 22, 2008
Experiential learning: UW students get unexpected lesson when earthquake strikes
After the magnitude-7.9 earthquake in southwest China on May 12, UW students, staff and faculty members got some education they hadn’t planned on. Sichuan University students attending the UW got some education they hadn’t planned on, either.
In Chengdu and the region around it, the rumble started about 2:30 p.m., but in seconds built to a roar. Suddenly, thousands of people poured out of buildings, into the streets. They included UW students Geoffrey Morgan, Steve Margitan and Danny Stemp.
They’d been in a Starbucks working on a presentation for a Chinese history and current events class at Sichuan University. Outside the shop, the three simply observed as buildings shook and people ran. All told, the quake lasted about two minutes, enough to damage buildings all over Chengdu. When it was over, Morgan said, people were screaming and cursing cell phones that wouldn’t work. Some 220 cell towers had fallen.
As Morgan, Stump and Margitan watched, people continued to pour from buildings in waves, apparently unaware that elevators are dangerous after an earthquake. An aunt in Morgan’s host family would later tell him that in Chengdu, earthquakes are rare.
The students are in Chengdu sponsored by UW Worldwide, which for the last six years has brought multi-national faculty and students together for research projects. It’s sent 78 American students to Chengdu for an academic year at Sichuan University, and about 100 Sichuan University students have spent the same amount of time at the UW. Thirteen Sichuan University students have returned to the U.S. for graduate study, and this year, seven of Sichuan’s faculty members will be visiting the UW.
A city of about 11 million, Chengdu is about 40 miles southwest of the epicenter of the largest earthquake to hit China since 1976.
Much of the earthquake damage is north of Chengdu, but city residents remain nervous. A day or so after the quake, for example, a rumor whipped through the city: ammonia had contaminated the city water supply. In nothing flat, jugs of water disappeared off store shelves. “My family stockpiled two 20-gallon jugs, but some families bought enough cases of water to almost fill an entire room,” said Margitan. The rumor proved false, but not before tap water pressure dropped to zero.
Also within a day, UW students and administrators had to decide whether to evacuate the 10 students and their site manager, Eddie Schmitt. In Seattle, administrators talked back and forth all day, into the evening, eventually deciding on two options: temporarily evacuate to Shanghai or stay put in Chengdu — the latter after signing an acknowledgement of risk.
“I decided that the danger is not great enough to warrant leaving,” said Morgan, a Maple Valley resident majoring in international studies as well as civil and environmental engineering. “I have too many things to do here, and things I could be doing to help.” He also wanted to help his host family if need be.
Margitan decided similarly. “It would have been hard to go home, pack my things and tell my host family ‘Thanks and good luck, but I am jumping town.'”
Since then, he and Morgan have divided their time between resumed classes at Sichuan University, and with members of the UW community in Seattle, organizing an earthquake relief fund. Their goals include a bus packed with water and other relief supplies, then dispatched to a hard-hit area outside Chengdu, preferably one less helped by the Chinese government.
They’re also helping with the relief efforts in the city. On the way back from lunch a few days after the earthquake, for example, Margitan, Morgan and site manager Schmitt, 26, happened upon people unloading cases of water. They needed help, so the three pitched in. The three have also worked with Sichuan University students on efforts such as blood drives, said Margitan, an honors major in economics and international studies.
Asked what’s surprised him about the earthquake aftermath, Schmitt said, “How quickly things can change here.”
In a matter of a day or two, Schmitt saw large groups of people terrified about the earthquake, then elated about being alive, then chaotic about the mess, then organized into work groups. Aftershocks continue, and Monday night, the city essentially evacuated to the country when the government issued reports, apparently for the first time since the quake the week before, that aftershocks that day could be magnitude 6 or 7.
Uncertainty clinched Danny Stemp’s decision to leave Chengdu. Two days after the earthquake, the UW student saw the water panic, felt the strong aftershocks and learned about cracks in key dams near the city.
He also noticed that television news anchors were reassuring their audiences that the government had earthquake response under control, no need to worry. Government sources offered similar assurances in text messages to individual citizens.
But there was no official mention of cracks in dams. “Nobody official was talking about them,” said Stemp. “If was as if the dams are not a problem.”
Talking with his apartment roommates, Stemp decided he’s better off in Shanghai, and arrived Saturday morning.
All told, five UW students have left Chengdu for Shanghai, and five remain.
Several Sichuan University students at the UW heard about the earthquake as it was happening because they were talking either by phone or e-mail with friends in Chengdu.
Zhuo Chen, 21, who is studying materials science and engineering at the UW, heard about the earthquake and called his father, a pharmacist, and mother, a nurse. The couple have spent the days since the quake caring for people injured in their city, Mianyang, the second-largest in Sichuan province and one of the worst hit. Chen’s parents told him that while unhurt, they are exhausted from caring for waves upon waves of injured people.
Chen’s mother, Yufen He, has searched hospital after hospital for an aunt but holds little hope of finding her. Of the 160 people she worked with in a Mianyang hospital, only four have been found alive.
Steve Harrell, a UW anthropology professor who directs UW Worldwide program, admitted to some tiredness on Friday. He’d dealt with hundreds of phone calls and e-mails, not to mention attending meetings, about students affected by the earthquake.
He said, however, that the days “renewed my faith in this kind of program. You allow these student to live on their own — pay rent, buy their own food, take care of an apartment, learn a language, operate pretty much as adults residing in a foreign country. They don’t need to be led by the hand. They can thrive in such an environment, even though they’re only 20 or 21 years old.”
