當(dāng)自然暴露出野性，生命在廢墟中飄零

2008年5月12日14點(diǎn)28分，四川汶川，一場里氏8.0級的地震襲來。無數(shù)生命在那一刻永遠(yuǎn)逝去，許多曾經(jīng)美麗安寧的村莊頓時(shí)變成了一片片慘不忍睹的廢墟……

災(zāi)難面前，我們感受著生命的渺小和脆弱，更驚嘆于生命的偉大和神奇。災(zāi)難讓我們懂得：活著真好！災(zāi)難更讓我們思考：怎樣才能活得有意義？——珍惜擁有，努力活得充實(shí)精彩！

親愛的讀者們，當(dāng)你們看到這篇文章時(shí)，距離地震發(fā)生已經(jīng)過去了兩個(gè)多月。都說時(shí)間能夠慢慢撫平創(chuàng)傷，但愿這篇文章不會再次刺痛那些正在愈合的“傷口”。因?yàn)檫x擇直面可怕的災(zāi)難，為的是學(xué)會更加堅(jiān)強(qiáng)勇敢地面對生活，進(jìn)而創(chuàng)建更美好的家園！

心手相連，我們永遠(yuǎn)在一起！

——Maisie

The doctor told the 10-year-old boy his legs would have to be 2)sawed off. Although trapped in rubble， the boy refused. “If you have to cut off my legs， I want to die，” he said. “I don’t want to live without my legs.”

The doctor promised the boy he would try his best to save him some other way. Six hours later， rescue workers 3)pried the boy loose. They put him in an ambulance. The boy’s heart stopped three times on the two-hour drive from this mountain town(Beichuan) down to the city of Mianyang. Each time， the doctors managed to restart it. Then they reached the hospital. There， while the boy was 4)sedated， the doctors cut off his legs.

“When he woke up and realized he no longer had his legs， he didn’t cry，” Jiang Zelong， a 19-year-old volunteer who had accompanied the rescue team， told me later. “When he felt pain， he held my hand tight， so tight， and he never shouted out.”

Over the last two weeks， while I was reporting on the earthquake that has killed at least 56，000 people and left 5 million others homeless in this rural 5)swath of southwest China， I heard a constant 6)refrain from my friends and colleagues: This can’t possibly compare to what you saw in Iraq.

I left Baghdad almost a year ago after a long 7)tour there. I then spent some months studying Mandarin in 8)Vermont and Taiwan. It was enough time away from work and in 9)bucolic places to allow me to think that when I landed in Beijing in late April to start my new assignment， I had put behind me much of the ugliness of the war: 10)morgues filled with corpses 11)shredded by 12)shrapnel， 13)mosques demolished by suicide 14)car bombs， the fear of random death that kept people caged in their homes.

Then came the 15)tremor at 2:28 p.m. on May 12. In the following days， making my way through the towns hardest hit by the quake and hearing stories from people like the rescuer Mr. Jiang， I realized that whatever violence people unleash on each other， the 16)wrathful face of nature can be just as cold and lethal and 17)implacable. It too can force ordinary people to confront horrific scenes and to take on the terrible task of 18)triage—deciding who can be saved and who must be 19)consigned to the dead.

Beichuan was once a town of 22，000. It is nestled in a river valley between two mountains， and 20)electric-green rice fields line the roads radiating from it.

The quake lasted minutes at most， but it left half the town 21)smothered by landslides， swallowing people， cars and entire buildings. 22)Boulders the size of 23)sedans rained down from the mountainsides and crushed residents rushing from their homes. One thousand children were trapped in a middle school collapse.

The earthquake placed China on a wartime 24)footing. The afternoon I 25)rode up to Beichuan in the back of a 26)flatbed lorry， three helicopters buzzed overhead while 27)convoys of army trucks passed us. Entire tent villages had sprung up on the sides of the road， some housing the soldiers who would be working here for weeks or months， the others sheltering the thousands of refugees who had hiked， 28)hobbled and crawled from the wreckage of Beichuan.

“I saw bodies all the way here，” said Li Yalan， a 24-year-old computer specialist now sleeping on blankets with her family in a stadium in Mianyang. “I made my way on top of the bodies. On the night of the earthquake， because the rescue teams didn’t come， parents used flashlights to search for their children. I saw people being rescued， but because they were bleeding so heavily， I watched them die right in front of me.”

The lorry dropped us off near the 29)debris of the middle school. No one knew for certain whether any of the children were still alive. No one had time to dwell on it. The area had become a 30)staging post for thousands of rescue workers in hard hats and orange suits， and soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army. It felt like downtown Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The soldiers， teenagers really， stood at

31)attention while being sprayed with 32)dis-infectant. Few had ever seen a dead body before. They marched off with shovels and 33)pickaxes into a town 34)littered with thousands of corpses.

Thousands would probably never be found in Beichuan and the neighboring villages. In Iraq， I had seen single buildings—a mosque， a hotel， an army 35)outpost—flattened by car bombs or missiles. In this town， it was block after block of buildings， all leveled， all grave sites. Red paper lanterns fluttered from the crumbled 36)facade of one restaurant. Atop piles of rubble were photo albums and baby 37)strollers and a pink teddy bear.

Li Yingbi had seen his share of crime scenes and fatal accidents in 24 years of 38)forensics work， but he shook his head when trying to describe what he felt while in Beichuan.

“I can’t say; it’s too complicated，” he said. “We have to go on， and we have to be strong and determined.”

醫(yī)生告訴一個(gè)10歲男孩，要想獲救必須鋸掉他的雙腿。盡管困在瓦礫堆中，男孩卻不同意。“如果一定要鋸掉我的腿，我寧愿去死，”他說，“我不想沒有雙腿地活著。”

醫(yī)生保證會盡自己最大的努力，用其他的方法把他救出來。6個(gè)小時(shí)后，救援人員終于將男孩從瓦礫里救出，送上了救護(hù)車。從山城北川到綿陽市區(qū)的兩個(gè)小時(shí)車程中，男孩的心臟三次停止跳動，每次醫(yī)生都把他搶救了過來。幾經(jīng)波折終于到達(dá)醫(yī)院，在那里，醫(yī)生給男孩注射了鎮(zhèn)定劑，幫他做了截肢手術(shù)。

“當(dāng)他醒來發(fā)現(xiàn)自己永遠(yuǎn)地失去了雙腿時(shí)，他沒有哭，”一直跟著救援隊(duì)的一名志愿者——19歲的蔣澤龍（音譯）后來告訴我，“他覺得痛的時(shí)候，就緊緊地抓著我的手，死命地抓著，卻從來沒有叫過一聲。”

過去的兩周，我都在追蹤報(bào)道地震新聞，這場地震已經(jīng)造成中國西南部農(nóng)村至少56000人喪生，500萬人無家可歸。