Rescue & Aid

Teen who saved family looks ahead

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-21 07:35

YUSHU, Qinghai - Kunsang Dekyi's family of 10 has been living in a makeshift tent since the deadly quake toppled their home in Northwest China's Qinghai province last Wednesday.

All they have in the 10-square-meter tent are sheets and clothing they found in the rubble, along with some relief food rationed by the local government.

They have no idea when they will move into a place they can call home.

Kunsang Dekyi holds her 4-month-old nephew at a tent in Yushu county on Tuesday. The 16-year-old Tibetan girl rescued nine members of her family from the rubble of their home after the 7.1 magnitude quake.LI ZIHENG / XINHUA

"We feel cold and miserable," said Kunsang Dekyi, 16. "But just being alive is good enough."

The teenage girl, who is training to be a nurse at a vocational school in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Yushu, rescued nine of her family members from the rubble of their home after the 7.1 magnitude quake.

"I got up early that day, because my school was far from home and I needed to get a photocopy of my ID on the way," she said.

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She was on her way when she "felt the ground shaking" and saw many houses collapse.

"My family was still fast asleep when I left home."

She ran all the way home, only to find her family's Tibetan-style house on a hill in outer Yushu county crushed by rolling rocks.

"I wept as I dug away the rubble with all my might. I dug out my mom. Then she helped me dig out my brother and together we found my sister and her son."

Her sister had protected the child under her body. She had head and face injuries, but the child was safe.

Kunsang Dekyi dug the whole day and got all nine family members out of the ruins alive.

She also recovered her school certificate of merit from the ruins. "I got it when I was in primary school. It was my first award of any kind."

A straight-A student, Kunsang Dekyi speaks fluent Tibetan and Mandarin and is one of the best students at her vocational school.

"I hope the school will resume soon," she said. "I'm being trained to be a nurse. As quake survivors, we will all now cherish life just as it is."

Xinhua

(China Daily 04/21/2010 page4)