In China, High-Tech Reunions
Internet, Hotlines Help Earthquake Survivors Find Relatives

By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 8, 2008

CHENGDU, China -- Not long ago, students from four devastated schools at the epicenter of last month's earthquake were evacuated to a leafy corner of Chengdu's Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, many of them separated from their families by the chaos.

They lined up in quiet rows upon arrival, their clothes covered with debris and faces black with dust, a university professor recalled. In one group, the youngest was only 4 years old.

Today, about 900 young survivors study at a temporary school set up at the university. About 10 have not yet found any relatives. Others, though, have either had emotional reunions or discovered that one or both parents have died.

In less than three weeks, the vast majority of the estimated 8,000 students who escaped collapsed classrooms have been reunited with parents or relatives, in part thanks to Web sites, hotlines and the work of scores of volunteers.

In some cases, parents simply called their children's teachers, who often knew who had survived and who hadn't, said Zeng Daorong, an assistant principal and economics professor at the university.

"We set up four meeting rooms here, and the scenes were so touching. The families hugged each other and cried, and later they laughed," Zeng said. "But some grandparents came and told students that their mother or father had died, and the students would suddenly cry out. I have a 14-year-old daughter. Before the earthquake, I seldom had tears. But after this, I can cry every night."

As of Thursday, 1,200 children remained separated from their families, including several hundred who had lost both parents, according to Ye Lu, director of the social welfare division of Sichuan's civil affairs office.

For those who have been reunited, however, technology has proved to be a boon.

On May 14, more than 140 patients, mostly children with broken arms and legs, were airlifted to Chengdu's Huaxi Hospital, one of the largest in the region. Immediately afterward, the hospital was flooded with several hundred family members looking for relatives.

"Because they were brought by helicopter, most patients had been separated from their families. Since they were searching, and since we had more people coming here to look for relatives than we had patients, we decided to publish a patient list online," said Liao Zhilin, the hospital's director of propaganda.

Unlike in the United States, where privacy concerns might slow the process, volunteers photographed many of the patients and posted the images online. The hospital shared patient information with the volunteers, including arrival times and home addresses.

"Many other Web sites linked to our Web site. More than 95 percent of the 2,700 patients who have come through here were reunited with their families," Liao said.

The hospital also set up tables and tents in a courtyard outside the main patient building for about 10 days. Volunteers from technology companies and other businesses provided at least 20 computers during peak times and telephone companies provided at least 30 phones.

"Although farmers don't have access to the Internet, there were so many volunteers and hotline operators with Internet access who could help them," Liao said. "If so many people had to search by themselves, they would have walked through all the patients' rooms and interrupted our work. The wards would look like a big market, with so many people."

One of the parents searching for children was Li Bo, from Wenchuan county, near the quake's epicenter. Li recalled learning that her daughter Huang Siyu, 12, had been injured and flown to the provincial capital of Chengdu. But she had no way of finding her.

Then, on May 17, a relative in Chengdu called to say he had checked the Internet and found the girl's name on the patient list at Huaxi Hospital.

The next day, a volunteer in the tents in front of the hospital led Li to her daughter's bedside on the second floor of Building No. 2. The girl's leg had been pinned under the rubble and had to be amputated after she was rescued.

"After I saw her, I held her and cried and cried. But my daughter comforted me saying, 'Mom, I can still walk with an artificial leg.' I had imagined that she was lying in bed, so lonely, but she was surrounded by volunteers," Li said. "I kneeled down to them, I was so thankful."

In Mianyang, residents of a giant tent city at the Jiu Zhou Sports Stadium had no Internet access. But each day a makeshift radio station broadcast names of the missing while telecom companies provided access to free phone calls. In front of a bulletin board full of fliers for missing children, computer science engineers set up two laptops to help enter into a database the names of people looking for relatives.

"Widespread mobile phone use and the Internet have brought about a big change in being able to share people's data so quickly," said Long Er, a software company employee who asked to be identified by his online name, and who with four colleagues started a Web site, http://www.512help.com, to help quake victims. "Ten years ago, it would have been impossible that so many resources would combine like this."

In Chengdu, people who dialed 114 for directory inquiries on their cellphones were connected to a hotline that grouped people in two categories: survivors and those in search of them. Callers' identities and phone numbers were registered, as well as detailed descriptions of the missing.

"We cooperate with hospitals, who give us their patient lists," said one 114 operator who declined to give his name. "I don't know how many people we've matched overall, but I match about 10 people a day."

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.