Olympic torchbearer loses count of lives he saved from earthquake rubble
28/5/2008 18:21
Gou Yiguo can't remember how many lives he saved from the earthquake
rubble which used to be Beichuan Middle School.
"I pulled out a lot of
students, alive or dead, from the rubble," said the PE teacher in a telephone
interview with Xinhua. "I just kept pulling and pulling. That was
horrible."
Gou, who was selected early this year as the only Olympic
torchbearer from Beichuan County of Mianyang City, one of the worst-hit areas of
the deadly May 12 earthquake, recounted the horror between sobs.
A strong
wave threw the 33-year-old Gou and his wife out of the open door of their
first-floor flat in Beichuan Middle School when the 8.0-magnitude earthquake
struck southwest China's Sichuan Province.
"I saw the six-story school
building crumpled like a house of cards and I heard screams and cries for help,"
Gou recalled.
"My students were all there. I taught eight sophomore classes.
My basketball team and athletics team were all there.
"I ran to the leveled
building and shouted: 'I'm Teacher Gou. Don't panic, children. I will get you
out.'"
Gou had pulled students from the rubble with bare hands until the
rescue team arrived one hour later.
"My wife later grabbed me away to check
my son in a nearby kindergarten. When I got there, my poor 3-year-old son had
stopped breathing," Guo choked on the phone.
After a long pause, Guo said he
returned to the flattened school.
"I shouted encouragement to the trapped
students for the whole night: 'Kids, I'm Teacher Gou. The rescue team will get
you out. Hang on there!'"
In the first two days after the earthquake, as Guo
recalled, occasional cries from the school ruins could be heard, but as time
went by, the cries lowered to whispers and finally died out.
The death toll
from China's most deadly earthquake in decades hit 67,183 as of midday
Yesterday, with 361,822 injured and 20,790 missing.
Guo's sister's family of
three were killed in a mudslide caused by the quake and his parents, who were
tilling the field when the disaster hit, were unhurt.
Local officials have
promised a special investigation into the collapse of Beichuan Middle School,
where up to 1,300 children and teachers died.
The temblor left at least
14,538 dead and 3,397 missing in Beichuan, but the most lamented victims have
been children of the middle school who were crushed to death in class.
"We
will preserve all the buildings, whether collapsed or not, for experts to
investigate," Zuo Daifu, Mianyang vice mayor, has promised.
More than 500
surviving students of Beichuan Middle School, resumed classes in Mianyang City a
week after the catastrophic quake.
"Many of the surviving students lost their
parents. I will love them as much as I loved my son. I will play ball games with
them. I will teach them how to get fit and healthy. I hope sports will help them
heal wounds and overcome trauma," said Guo.
Xinhua
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