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Remembering the Wenchuan earthquake

By khannula on May 11, 2009.

One year ago today, a M 7.9 earthquake struck the Chinese province of Sichuan. It was horrific. I don't have anything profound or helpful to say about it myself, but I want to pass on links to other remembrances:

Berkeley SeismoBlog explains the tectonics of the earthquake, and the possibility (raised in the Chinese journal Geology and Seismology that the water in the Zipingpu Reservoir may have triggered the earthquake. (The plate movements caused it, but the water may have made it easier for the fault to slip.)

The NPR reporters who were in Chengdu last May for another story, only to find themselves covering a natural disaster, returned this year, and talked to many of the same people. It's easy for the rest of the world to skip on to the next big news story, but the people of Chengdu and Beichuan are still living the long effects of the tragedy. Thanks, NPR, for giving me a glimpse of those lives again, and for making my cry again.

And Dave Petley, who discussed the landslides that resulted from the earthquake in such detail in the past year, has no words. But the pictures are powerful enough.

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