ON April 25, 2015, a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and injuring nearly 22,000, sending people running into the streets and open areas in a panic. According to Xie Bin, who owns a tourism company in Shenzhen and was an eyewitness of the earthquake, the ground shattered like the special effects in the movies and crows were hovering over them in the sky. After three years, that horrible day is still vivid in his memory. When the earthquake struck Pokhara, he was 80 kilometers away from the epicenter. The following is from the transcript of the recording of Xie’s account in an exclusive interview with Shenzhen Daily.
We were leaving Nepal for China when the earthquake hit. At about 2 p.m., all of us were gathering at the hotel when it started to shake, and my friends pulled me by the arm and we bolted out of the hotel. “It’s an earthquake!” someone shouted as the ground started to crack. When we were outside the hotel, we saw the floor tiles bouncing and the windows were broken into pieces. Flocks of crows were flying around in the sky and the buildings were collapsing, which was very terrifying. On our way to the airport, we saw a lot of roads had collapsed and numerous buildings were toppled. The driver took great pains to find a route to get us to the airport. When we got to the airport, we gave the driver all of the money we had to express our gratitude.
The whole airport was shut down, my friends and I split into different teams to look for our compatriots and to gather them in the parking lot. We found over 300 Chinese and I contacted the embassy, but they weren’t working Saturday. A correspondent with Xinhua News Agency in Kathmandu got my phone number somehow and called me to ask how everything was going. I told him we had over 300 people, but we didn’t have food or water. Also, the weather was getting darker and colder and we couldn’t get in touch with the embassy. The correspondent said he could help us contact the embassy. After a short while, a military attache from the embassy called me and asked about the situation. Later, I learned that the military attache was Liu Xiaoguang.
Several hours after the earthquake, Liu arrived at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport and pacified the Chinese tourists who were stranded there.
We were told by the airport that an Air China plane had landed and Chinese people should prepare to board. Ge Junfeng and I ran to our gathering area and told everyone to go to the airport with all of their stuff. As we were lining up in the terminal, a lot of people looked at us with envy and asked where we were heading. At that time we felt strong emotions about how great our country is. After we checked in, two big aftershocks hit the terminal. When we saw the Air China and China Southern Airlines planes on the tarmac as well as a China Eastern Airlines plane landing, a strong sense of pride washed over us. When we got on board a China Eastern Airlines plane flying to Kunming, we felt so reassured and everyone clapped when the airplane took off. We huddled together and felt so lucky to have survived the earthquake. We also felt fortunate to be Chinese, as our country wouldn’t leave us behind.
Airplanes from the Chinese airlines were the first to arrive in Kathmandu and all of the Chinese people were allowed to get on board without needing tickets.