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China earthquake triggers traumatic memories for Centerville woman
Related article: UD Chinese students concerned about family after quake | Video
Thursday, May 15, 2008
April Denofsky was 6 years old, visiting her grandparents for the summer, when the 20th century's most devastating earthquake hit China on July 28, 1976, killing an estimated 250,000 people.
Her grandparents lived in Tianjin, 183 miles from the epicenter of Tangshan, when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck.
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This week's major earthquake brought back memories of that traumatic time for Denofsky, who now lives in Centerville with her husband, Dan, and their children, Jasmine, 7, and Jake, 4.
"I was sleeping with my grandma in the same bed, and I slept through the whole thing," Denofsky recalled.
She didn't understand what had happened; she couldn't figure out why people were walking around covered in blood. She thought the little girl being carried in her father's arms was merely sleeping. For the kids it was a big adventure — "like camping" — as they were forced to live outside. She marveled at the sight of whole buildings crumpled away, their interiors exposed like a 20-story dollhouse.
For her parents, engineers who remained in Beijing to work, the wait was agonizing. "At first I thought it was a train," recalled Denofsky's mother, "Maggie" Yu Lan Jiang, who now lives in Washington Twp. "There was a weird blue flash and the building started to shake."
Their Beijing apartment in shambles, they spent the night under umbrellas in the rain. Initial reports named Tianjin as the epicenter, and they didn't know if their daughter was alive or dead. Jiang's brother and niece had been on a train to Beijing from northeastern China; their route would pass through Tangshan.
"I remember standing around doing laundry and crying," Jiang recalled.
In the midst of the chaos, Denofsky's father, Feng Hai Li, caught a train to Tianjin the next morning with the help of a colleague who had railroad connections.
Denofsky didn't understand why she had to cut short her vacation by coming home. "We were having fun," she said. "It was exciting."
The neighbors cheered when Li returned with his daughter, safe and sound. A week later the family learned that Jiang's brother and niece also survived. The conductor of their train narrowly averted disaster; he stopped the train just shy of its arrival in Tangshan. They were stranded on the train for a week.
Other families were not so lucky. Jiang had an acquaintance who lost 20 family members; the two lone survivors had gone out of town that week.
Rescue efforts were relatively primitive. "I remember rescuers digging with their hands until their fingernails fell out," Denofsky said. While equipment today is more sophisticated, rescue workers will be hampered by the more rugged, treacherous terrain in Sichuan province.
Denofsky met her husband, Dan, in 1990 in Beijing, where he was taking part in a summer program through Arizona State University. She teaches English part time at Centerville High School and also works as a translator. April's parents live nearby; both of them work at the Washington Twp. Dorothy Lane Market store.
"It really makes me mad that some people are saying this tragedy is karma for the way the Chinese government treats the people of Tibet," Denofsky said. "How can people say these things? Was Hurricane Katrina God's wrath against the people of the United States? Of course not. It was a natural disaster."
She added, "This brings it all back. We are so worried about those people. Especially the children."
Contact this reporter at mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com. For information about how to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake, visit www.redcross.org
