China earthquake rattles University community

As the death toll from Monday’s earthquake approaches 20,000 with thousands more still missing in China's Sichuan Province, the rubble has managed to fall upon the lives of students and faculty thousands of miles away in New Jersey.

"The earthquake happened about 60 miles outside of the major city of Chengdu where my parents and grandparents were," computer science professor Fei-Fei Li '99 said. "They were resting at home and then the earthquake [hit] ... and started it shaking like hell."

This past Monday, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck Sichuan Province, a region in Southwestern China about the size of Maryland.

"The shake was very, very intense," Li said. "They had to hide in a small part of the house. It shook for about three or four minutes. They heard things dropping all over the house ... Then it stopped for one minute, but before they had time to get out, [it] started shaking again."

Li's neighbors and childhood friends must sleep on the streets among the rubble.

Though 60,000 people have been rescued, more than 25,000 people remain missing, particularly in small villages that have lost contact with the outside world.

"The real sad story is outside [the major cities], [in] the very mountainous towns near the epicenter," Li said. Only one winding road or a bridge connects these towns to the outside world, she explained. A lot of the bridges have collapsed, and they are completely isolated from outside help.

"For the first 48 hours, many of these towns have received no help ... and school children were buried," she said.

Li added that a friend who is working on relief efforts in the region called the amount of damage "indescribable."

"Chengdu doesn't need help, but to me it is the school children and the peripheries," she noted.

The Association of Chinese Students and Scholars of Princeton University and the International Center are coordinating fundraising for relief efforts. They are working to raise money for the American Red Cross for China Earthquake Relief Fund, which will deliver aid directly to the victims. They have set up stations in Frist Campus Center, the Graduate Dining area in Proctor Hall and the E-Quad Cafe to collect donations from today until next Friday.

The organizations are collaborating with the Distinguished Citizens Society International, the Chinese equivalent of the Rotary Club, to promote the fundraising effort.

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Zhiwei Yang, a visiting professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department, sent out his own letter to encourage donations. "Five dollars alone can provide a homeless kid with a blanket [for protection] from the cold night," the letter said.

The Chinese Students Association is also sending e-mails encouraging its members to donate to the Red Cross Society of China's relief fund.