Friday, May 30, 2008 Heroes

♂(o^.^)o ♥ o(^.^o)♀

What are heroes actually?
Someone like Superman?
Someone like Batman?
Someone like Spiderman?

A hero is a person of distinguished courage or ability,
admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
A hero is someone who cares and loves someone so much,
that they will go out of their way to help someone.

Everybody's hero may be different.
Some might think their parents are their hero.
Some might think that their teacher or coach are their hero.
Some might acknowloedge firefighters and soldiers as heroes.

For me,
Heroes are someone who dedicates their lives,
to saves others,
to protect others,
and to be there for others.

An earthquake,
magnitude 8.0, struck Sichuan province of China at 2:28PM, May 12, 2008.
The epicenter of the earthquake, Wenchuan, is about 90 miles from Chengdu.
The earthquake released more energy than 500 atomic bombs,
30 times more than the Kobe earthquake in Japan, 1995.
By May 19, there are more than 32,000 confirmed dead,
more than 20,000 still missing,
and more than 4.7 million houses collapsed or heavily damaged.

Cities close to the epicenter are flattened.
Whole mountains collapsed.

Devastation

Millions of people lost their beloved ones,
their homes, their belongings.
Yet there is no looting, no complaints,
just people helping each other.
(except for the girl in Dear's post >.<)

Within hours, people rushed to rescue.
Blood donation lines run for 100 yards,
and people waited hours to donate blood;
within 24 hours, all major blood banks ran out storage space.
The highway to the earthquake struck city Dujianyang (20 mile from Chengdu)
was almost jammed one hour after the earthquake,
not by people fleeing the aftershocks,
but by volunteers,
led by over 1,000 taxi drivers, came from Chengdu to rescue.

Medical workers provided care under extreme conditions;
they even delivered many new born babies on the parking lot.

1,1000 paratroopers started boarding airplanes 2 hours after earthquake.
Despite heavy rain, high wind and thick cloud,
they jumped from over 20,000 foot high to remote mountain areas
where they did not even know if there would be a place for them to land.

With roads buried by landslide and bad weather hammering airborne operations,
a group of 600 soldiers and medical teams,
walked 21 hours straight on foot in mountain area,
carrying heavy relief supplies,
risking landslide and falling rocks.
They became the first group to arrive at the epicenter of the earthquake.

Soldiers and rescue workers working around clock to rescue people still buried.
Unable to transport heavy machineries to the remote areas
since roads are buried by landslides,
they often have to use hands to move tons of concrete.

People are rushing to donate money.
Many rich people donated in millions,
but no one can match Xu Chao (60 years old).
He is a homeless in Nanjing, 1000 miles from the disaster area.
He saw the news and went to donate 5 Yuan in the morning.
He said people in the disaster area were worse off than him
because their lives were threatened.
He came back in the afternoon, donated another 100 Yuan ($14).
He explained that all he had were pennies and dimes,
and he didn’t want to waste volunteer workers’ time to count them,
so he went to the bank to change everything he had into one big bill.
This is from a man who doesn’t have money to buy food for himself.
God bless him.

Song Xinying 3, pulled out from rubble after being buried for 2 days.
She was in critical condition and lost a leg, but survived.
Her parents hold each other’s hands and shoulders face to face
to make an arch to shield her from the falling building.
Her parents did not make it out.
God bless them too.

A 5 year old boy was rescued after being buried under rubbles for 24 hours.
His left hand was broken,
but he smiled and saluted to his rescuers.
His smile made everybody shed in tears.

Zhang Jiwang ,11,
carrying his sister Zhang Han , 3，
walked 12 hours straight to flee the disaster center.

Yuan Wentin, 26, first grade teacher.
When the earthquake struck,
she rushed to carry her stunned students
from classroom on the 3rd floor to the ground.
She managed to pull out most of her students,
but the building collapsed when she was trying to pull out the last few.
At the last moment of her life,
she was trying to use her body to shield the students from falling concrete.
God bless her too.

This high school student was rescued from the collapsed building.
She lost both legs, and her both hands are broken.
The rescue workers were all in tears when they saw this.
She smiled to them: “Be Brave!”

This baby, after being buried over 24 hours,
miraculously, was rescued unscratched.
He is about 3-4 months old,
and his mother kneeled down,
pinned her head and hands on the ground
to shielded him from the falling concrete, and milked him.
His mother did not make it out.
A rescue worker found his mom’s cell phone in his wrapper.
It had a text message left by his mother:
“Dear child, if you survive, please remember, Mom loves you forever…”
(omg this nearly made me cry -.-)

I once saw in a newspaper,
A women cut of her own legs,
with her own hands.
In order to survive.

In this life and death situation,
how would you react?
Would you have what it takes to do it?
Or would you just give up?
And end your life there?

Its not easy to do it,
Cutting of your own leg.
It takes lots of courage,
lots of bravery.

So what do you think?
What are heroes actually?
Maybe this could help you decide. ^^
(altho its damn long haha but do consider reading it)

God bless all those who contributed in this disaster.
And may God protect those in need.

(o^.^o) ♪♫ Sayonara~

Labels: life