Essay/Term paper: 921 earthquake

Essay, term paper, research paper:  College Essays

CNN: A special news report-This morning, there was an earthquake registering 7.6 on the Richter scale shaked Taiwan at 1:45am on September 21,1999. The epicenter is a mile under the ground in Nantou near Puli. There are many buildings crushed, and even a twelve floor-high rise building suddenly became a two floor- high rise building (the first to the sixth floors dipped into the underground, and the seventh to the twelfth floors went diagonally down and damaged the road.) As of press time the Disaster Management Center said 2,034 people were confirmed dead. Another 6,536 were injured and 2,308 were trapped, while 208 were still listed as missing. The number still increases, Taiwan has many earthquakes, and although most are centered under the sea and cause no damage. Some have brought disaster to the island, but this time is the biggest earthquake in Taiwanese history. Taiwanese call it the 9-21 earthquake because it happened on September 21 1999.

I was at my work place, I had heard the news: there was a building crushed in Taipei because of a serious earthquake was registering 7.6 happened in Taiwan about an hour ago. I was so happy and careless because my entire family dose not live close to Taipei and I did not have any bad information about central Taiwan. During my lunch break, there was updating news from CNN station: the epicenter of this earthquake is in Nantou near Puli. My heart was stony and cold, after I knew the epicenter was in my grandmother"s hometown-Puli. Nantou County is approximately 200km south of Taipei, and it is the only place not around the ocean in Taiwan. There are only mountains around Nantou, and Puli is a small town in Nantou County. There are about two thousand people in Puli, and its wine, rice noodles, and beauty are the most famous things in Taiwan because Puli has very good and clean spring water, and the air quality is the top of the line- no pollution. Moreover Puli is a small town, and all the people in Puli are like a big family. People know everything in the town, and they knew me since I was born. It is a very different environment and experience in Puli than in America, and I love it very much. It was hard to believe that Mother Nature punished Puli and Taiwan so badly.

After Taiwan had the quaked of 7.6, people around the world tried to help Taiwan as fast as they could. However, China as the sovereign government of Taiwan and as part of its "one China" policy is in the theory of providing assistance depended on it being asked to do so by Beijing. It can be simply translate to anyone wants to help Taiwan; they must get China"s agreement first. First of all, this is nonsense because Taiwan is not a part of China; we don"t pay tax to China. Moreover we have our own government, and all the products that Taiwan made are all signed made in Taiwan not China. Second of all, Taiwan is small, but China is a big strong country, and it has an absolute "No" right in the United Nations. The absolute "No" right means that if all the Untied Nations agree to do something, but China says no, then, United Nations still can"t do it. Therefore when China announced to the entire nations that Taiwan is a part of China, and everything must goes through China first, no body could or wanted to disobey China. When other countries tried to help Taiwan, they asked China for permission, which threw off the best help timing, and most of the answers they got were either Taiwan is fine or " No"- they can"t do it.

A pool little Taiwan is a pitiable country because we just had the quaked of 7.6, and we could not get help on time because China tried to obstruct the help from the nations. Many of injured Taiwanese can"t have the medicine or even a doctor to treat their injuries, and even for the doctors can"t have enough coffins for the dead people, instead doctors can only use plastics to wrap them first.

It was a tough time for me because I could not contact with my family right after I knew there was a big quake shocked Taiwan. I"d tried very hard and many times calling my family in Taiwan, but I couldn"t get through it. I kept trying and trying at the first night, I even did not sleep through the whole night. Nevertheless, I could not get hold of my mother; it did not mater how hard I tried to call home. In addition, I was so disappointed and frustrated, after I"d heard all my roommates got contact with their families accept me. I did not know what was going on in my family; my grandmother was in Puli, and my mother was living on the fifth floor of a apartment building. The only thing I could do just by trying to call home til I could contact with them. While I was trying to call Taiwan, I could not stop thinking of some worse events would happen to my family members. For instance, my mother probably could not get out of the apartment building on time; what if she was trapped in the apartment? I was not only worried and scared but also I had still go school and work everyday. If my friends and customers knew I had my family in Puli, they always asked me over and over again: Did you get contacts with your family yet? The more people asked me, the harder and colder feeling I would have because I could not cry or go crazy. Although I had to be strong and organized to be ready for everything, I had started loosing my patient. If I couldn"t get contact with my family within another couple days, I was planning to fly back to Taiwan. As a result, it was at 2:05am on September 25 the early Saturday morning, my mother called and told me all my family members are fine, but we needed to rebuild our home because of the grisly damages on our house. I was released, then, I started crying and laughing through the whole morning; I never cried so hard like this time.

I was so happy after hearing from my family, but in this moment of immense suffering and sorrow for the people of Taiwan, I would like them to know that I am with them, all the Taiwanese are with them. I did feel sorry for other people who had lost their family and lovely ones, but we all learned different things from each earthquake. I do hope that from now on, we should study more about the earthquakes and prepare better to save life in the future if it happens again.