Young Chinese Student Recounts Panicked Escape From Dormitory During Earthquake

After finishing her last class on Wednesday evening at around 10:20 p.m., as usual, Ke Mengyuan, a 15-year-old student from the No. 2 High School in Lu County, Sichuan, was fast asleep when she was woken up by a slight tremble at around 4:30 a.m.

"I was sleeping on the upper level of a bunk bed. I first felt the bed shake a little bit and didn’t bother to get up. But when I turned over, the bed began to shake violently and everyone started screaming outside. I tried to hold onto the handle as hard as I could", Ke told Sputnik.

Once Ke was able to stabilise herself, she jumped off the bed and rushed into the hallway. Stepping onto the debris that had fallen from the walls in the hallway, Ke realised she needed to go back to the room to put her sandals on.

After grabbing her glasses and her watch, Ke joined about 2,000 students in her dorm who were rushing to get out of the building.

Ke shared a room with five other roommates and her room was on the fifth floor of a seven-story building. With everyone rushing to get out of the building, the hallway was packed with panicking students.

"I was on the fifth floor and the stairs in the building were packed with students. I had to take one small step at a time to move with the crowd. I almost couldn’t move my legs because I was so scared. It took me more than 10 minutes to get to the playground next to the building", Ke said.

No Mobile Phone at School

Once the students were gathered in the playground of the high school, they were forced to wait in the open-air space under heavy rainfall for more than three hours. They were only allowed to return to their dorms at around 7 a.m.

"It was raining very hard with thunderstorms. I felt really cold and tired. And we didn't have time to put our clothes on. I was still in my pyjamas. And the school didn’t give us anything like a blanket to keep us warm. Maybe there were too many students and they didn’t have enough blankets", Ke said.

Her school had about 7,000 students, who mostly lived in dorms on campus.

What made Ke still more nervous while waiting in the rain was the fact that she could not even call her parents because the school did not allow the students to use their mobile phones on campus.

"After waiting for more than an hour, I was finally able to call my mom when a kind aunt who works in the school café allowed me to use her phone. My mom was so worried that the first thing she said on the phone was that she had tried to call the public phones in my dormitory building, but couldn’t get through", Ke said.

The young student was also worried whether her parents had made it to safety during the earthquake because her home is not far from the school. Fortunately, none of her family members was injured during the earthquake.

Damaged School Buildings

School buildings in China have in recent years attracted public scrutiny, after poorly constructed school buildings collapsed during a devastating earthquake in 2008, burying many young students under the rubble.

Despite incurring visible damage during the earthquake on Thursday, none of the buildings at Ke’s school collapsed.

"I saw cracks in my dormitory building and the ceilings fell off. But the staircases were mostly intact. I saw that the buildings where we have our classes had damaged staircases", Ke said.

When Ke was taking her evening classes the night before, she said she noticed a possible warning at around 8:30 p.m.

"At around 8:30 p.m., I saw the air conditioners in my classroom shake for about 3-4 seconds. My body didn’t really feel the shake. But the school did not give any warning after that and didn’t try to evacuate us from the building", she said.

Nevertheless, as the Sichuan province is located in an active earthquake zone, Ke's school has held regular evacuation drills, and most of the students were aware of what to do when an earthquake hits.

Thanks to its spacious playground, Ke’s school has also been designated a temporary evacuation centre for local residents affected during the earthquake. That's also why all the students, including Ke, were sent home.

Ke said she did not know when she could resume her studies, but she felt lucky to be safe and could spend more time with her family. Due to her busy schedule at school, students like Ke are allowed to go home for only three days each month. So the time off during the earthquake has given Ke more time to be with her family.

According to local authorities in Lu County, the earthquake has killed three people and left three others in serious condition, with another 85 people suffering minor injuries.