CHINA> Post-quake Life
'Wailing wall' witness to grief of 1976 quake
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-11 16:54

SHIJIAZHUANG -- It took her 30 years to find her brother's name after the massive quake that changed the fate of a city in north China, a time long enough for her black hair to go gray.

"Finally, I found your name," murmured 56-year-old Zhou Xiangde on Monday as she held a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums and wept at the Tangshan Earthquake Memorial Wall.

The 300-meter-long black marble wall in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, has also been called the "wailing wall" of China. It bears the names of 242,000 earthquake victims, including Zhou's younger brother Tangsheng.

As the country marks Tuesday, the first anniversary of the devastating May 12 earthquake in southwest China, the date bears other, sadder meaning to people in Tangshan like Zhou. The scars left by the quake there, more than three decades ago, are again being torn open.

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A magnitude-7.8 earthquake rocked the city during the night of July 28, 1976, killing more than 242,000 people, leaving 164,000 severely injured and millions homeless.

Most of the dead were hastily buried in mass graves. Each July 28 since then, all the survivors could do was burn paper money in the streets in memory of the dead.

"Millions of people have the same anniversary for the deceased, and we have no tombs to sweep," Zhou said.

The local government of Tangshan built the "wailing wall" on May 1 for the public to mourn those they lost.

The dimensions of the memorial refer to the date of the quake: 7.28 meters tall, for the day, and 19.76 meters wide, for the year.

Although Zhou and her family searched online ahead of time, it still took them a while to find her brother's name on the wall among 242,000 others.

Zhou left her flowers by the wall under her brother's name.

"It has been 33 years. I've spent that time trying to forget, and yet it's like it just happened," she said.

To Zhou Qinsheng, Tangsheng's elder brother, the boy who died in his 20s was a smart young man with beautiful calligraphy, who could draw with both hands.

"The thought of him broke my heart every spring," he sighed.

"We will come here a lot in the future," he added. "For him, and for all the victims of the quakes."