A worker on the site of a collapsed hotel rests as rescuers search for victims of the century's second most deadly earthquake. (AP)

By Shu Shin Luh
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, September 22, 1999; 12:05 p.m. EDT

Shu Shin Luh, 22, moved to Taiwan from Hong Kong when she was 13. She came to the United States four years ago to attend Yale University, but much of her family still lives in Taipei. Shu spent the summer as a reporting intern at The Washington Post. Here in Washington, she recounts how seeing images of her homeland in ruins has affected her.

I thought I would experience something like this only through CNN – or read about in the newspapers or hear about on the radio the day after.

But on Monday, that all changed.

At 5:30 p.m. EST, my parents called me on my cell phone from Taipei to tell me that they were okay, that they just experienced an earthquake, a very big one.

I didn't know how serious the quake was then, and since this was far from the first time the country I call home had been hit by an earthquake, I wasn't horribly concerned.

But when I got home later Monday evening and turned on the television set, a news flash scrolled across the screen: "A strong earthquake hit Taiwan today. An estimated 500 people may be killed and more than 1,000 injured."

My mind went blank. I picked up the phone to call home, but the circuits were busy. I tried again and again and again for two hours, but all I got was a busy tone.

I panicked. I paced around my bedroom, trying hard to remember what exactly my parents had told me over the phone. Did they say they were okay? Did they mention that our apartment was intact? What did they say about electricity and food?

News reports said the quake measured 7.6, the most serious one in Taiwan in100 years. Experts said aftershocks could slow down rescue efforts. I cringed.

For the first time, I thought about the families who suffered the earthquake in Turkey. I remembered sitting in my bedroom watching the rescue efforts there unfold on television. I had felt sincerely sorry for those people crying next to their parents' bodies, and others pleading with rescue workers to save family members who might still be buried alive under the rubble. But on Monday, those faces didn't seem so distant any more. The cries for help felt more heart-wrenching than ever. I had watched television and prayed hard that the rescuers could get to survivors trapped under the toppled buildings in Turkey before time ran out.

Yet always, in the back of my mind, I thought: thank goodness this would never happen to me or my family.

But it did.

This morning, I watched with disbelief as CNN showed truck loads of coffins being delivered to towns near the center of the quake. People knelt before their loved ones, now covered haphazardly in blankets and plastic tarps. My father told me that some of the morgues are already overflowing; there aren't enough coffins to bury the dead. The government is asking the international community for more body bags.

It felt unreal. This couldn't have really happened to my home country. For the last two days, I've felt like I was living through a vivid nightmare. As I watched rescue workers pull survivors from under the rubble, I wanted to cry. These people emerging from toppled apartment buildings weren't just blank faces I felt sorry for. They were people my family knew, relatives my friends loved and people I might have brushed past on the streets.

I've taken for granted that the ground on which I stand, walk and live is secure. I've always confidently assumed that natural disasters – Mother Nature's violent whims – happened somewhere else. But now, my parents and their friends were scurrying out of their offices and apartment buildings every time they felt a strong aftershock.

Amidst the tragedy, I have to remind myself that I'm lucky. My parents, relatives and friends were largely unhurt by the quake. But even as my mother comforted me with jokes about her first-ever candlelight dinner with my father, I felt a particular sadness. My homeland – the streets I had played on, the stores I had visited – was in ruins.