Cube heals quake wounds
The town of Yingxiu in southwest China has a 10-metre high ‘‘cube of love’’. Inside is a sculpture of a tree with giant breasts protruding from its trunk and babies crawling up to suckle on them.
The site is a tribute to love, and one of three memorials in a town where more than half the population died in an earthquake.
The magnitude-8 quake struck on May 12, 2008, killing 6566 of Yingxiu’s 12,000 residents.
The cube memorial is a tribute to the nations, including New Zealand, that provided assistance in the quake aftermath. ‘‘Love’’ is written in 40 languages on the cube and it features a sculpture of hands coming together to form the ‘‘gate of love’’.
Across town, what used to be a school sits at a precarious angle, with one side sunk deep into the ground. There were 1500 pupils studying there on the day of the earthquake; 55 died. A clock marking the time it struck sits on a stairwell in memoriam.
On a hill overlooking the town is a museum. Dan Yu, 25, works as a tour guide there. Seven years ago, when the quake hit, she watched buildings collapse around her and thought the world was ending. Now, she relives those events every day so visitors can learn about the quake and its effect.
Across southwestern China, 69,195 people were killed and 5.3 million buildings destroyed.
It took a long time to heal afterwards, Yu said. The first two years were traumatic for many people and some still struggle with the psychological effects today.
‘‘The most important thing for us is to learn from the earthquake and how to survive them.’’
Yu’s mother and grandmother were injured in the disaster. She is thankful not to have lost any family members.