Thoughtfulness

Mother Nature creates all lives on earth, yet She cuts lots of them short from time to time.
Now so many innocent people got punished just for their vulnerability, by being buried alive and left to die the most horrific and agonizing death.

I cannot tell how I envy all those who can courageously rush into the devastated lands and reach out their helping hands, rescuing those still narrowly holding on, and recovering those having gone!
Thanks to the sheer number of good people among the whole population, there is no shortage of volunteers. And there are still many ready to come from outside the country.
Though a pity I cannot be helpful to the unfortunate other than donating a bit of money, I think I still can be a little thoughtful for the sake of my own self.

I cannot tell why I just cannot stop comparing the splendid Bird's Nest for the coming Beijing Olympic Games, with a single school building reduced to debris, burying more than a thousand children alive in a split second.
The imagination of innocent people being buried alive by debris keeps making my generic beating heart sink deep into horror and sadness, followed by meditation and contemplation!
My sluggish heart would at last scream to itself, 'how on earth a nightmare like this can be true!'

A few days ago a TV news clip showed the PLA's first airborne rescue team, bringing with them a reporter, landing on a high ground in Wenchuan where the epicentre was located.
It was narrated that many survivors shouted to themselves, 'the birds of luck have come!'
They rushed to the site and knelt down before the helicopters. What they did first was worship, expressing their gratefulness. These are really simple and traditional people. They might not even take the right of being rescued from such a catastrophe for granted.
These poor people are used to surviving all kinds of hardship, misfortunes and natural disasters mainly on their own. If the PLA did not come, they would not even complain with a single word.

The republic will celebrate its 60th anniversary soon in next year, following the Beijing Olympic Games just round the corner, in which the republic's athletes will surely achieve good results. How good would it be if the ruling elite could have made it fast enough to get ahead of such ever anticipated devastation, to successfully save most of the very vulnerable people from perishing, after having engaged with such a major destructive enemy!
We all know that this cruelest faceless devastator has always been lurking around, waiting to strike all of a sudden. Living on these lands with so much tectonic potential momentum accumulating, one is very likely to encounter a devastating quake at his doorstep during his lifetime. The whole population in the area should thus be well prepared in everyday life in order to survive when a bad quake does happen. The People's Government should have done much more than already done, in order to address the threats of this formless unconquerable enemy. Yet they just have fallen very short of it indeed.
The loss of human life this time is astronomical, far too much for a 21st century China!

The People's Government has no doubt made a number of significant improvements during the past two decades, in terms of running the industrializing country. Now it has even for the very first time not imposed restrictions for the media, including those from Hong Kong, Taiwan and foreign countries, on covering the whole area of devastation.
Yet the improvements are still far from a much higher degree the great republic deserves. It needs to better itself much harder.