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Thunderbird Professor Roe Goddard kept teaching when a quick bump interrupted his Executive MBA class May 12 on the fifth floor of an old cement building in Chengdu, China.
Goddard says the initial tremor of a deadly earthquake that measured 8.0 on the Richter scale felt like a nibble on a fishing line. He thought maybe a bomb had exploded in the distance, but none of the 40 students in the classroom seemed alarmed. So he continued teaching.
That’s when things got violent. Within a few seconds, Goddard says windows started shattering and things in the classroom started falling.
The students rushed to an outdoor patio near the classroom and looked over the capital city of the densely populated Sichuan province. Buildings swayed in the distance to the sound of grinding cement and cracking lumber.
Instinctively, Goddard says, everybody grabbed arms and waited for the floor to crumble beneath them. But that never happened.
“We stood there for what seemed like infinity as everything was shaking,” Goddard says. “It was so unsettling.”
After the shaking stopped, Goddard says the group rushed down the stairs to an open courtyard below.
“I’ve never been down a stairwell so fast in my life,” he says.
Goddard described the earthquake and its aftermath during an informal presentation Tuesday at Thunderbird. More than 100 faculty, staff and students came to ask questions and listen to the firsthand account of the catastrophe that has killed more than 67,000 people and left millions homeless.
Another 20,000 people remain missing, and the death toll keeps rising. One-third of the students in one of Goddard’s classes lost a family member, and he says the devastation has left him raw emotionally.
“China is really getting beaten up this year,” he told the audience. “2008 was supposed to be a glorious time with the Beijing Olympics.”
He says he saw an outpouring of support in China, and many in the country stepped outside their “golden circles” of relatives to offer aid to strangers. But Goddard worries that the generosity that has come from around the world will taper off with time.
“I’m hoping there will be the political will to continue,” he says. “We’ll wait and see if this can last long term.”
Other Thunderbirds caught in the quake echo this call for continued disaster relief.
Student Meng Ji was in China for an internship when the earthquake hit.
“This devastating disaster has taken thousands of lives, but it united all Chinese across the world,” she says. “People across China are donating blood, money and supplies to help.”
But Jing says sustained relief from around the world is needed. “All those who lost their family and home need your help,” she says.
Thunderbird alumnus David Bush, a graduate of 2005, has seen this need firsthand. Bush works for Intel in Chengdu and was finishing a meeting when his building started shaking.
“At first my colleague and I looked at each other in surprise wondering if this really was an earthquake,” he says. “As the seconds ticked by and the building continued to shake, we realized that it was.”
Bush says everybody in his building evacuated safely, and he was reunited that evening with his wife, Li Ping. The couple slept in a park with neighbors the first night.
Bush says several aftershocks and rumors of water shortages kept everybody on edge in the days that followed.
“People were hoarding any liquid they could find,” he says.
But Bush downplayed any of the inconveniences his family has suffered.
“My wife and I are very fortunate,” he says. “All of the things we have gone through are trivial compared to the pain and suffering felt by so many nearby.”
Thunderbird 2004 graduate Jenny Yang says she felt her sky-rise apartment sway in Beijing more than 600 miles away.
“The way we have been impacted most is just watching through the television the loss and devastation,” she says. “We know from the media that there is desperate need for supplies, medical aid and shelter. We pray that they get these vital items quickly before anyone else has to suffer.”
A 2000 graduate of Thunderbird Linda Suen emphasized that aftershocks have continued to plague the region, and the disaster is far from over.
“Other effects such as floods, landslides and diseases make relief efforts that much more challenging,” she says. “Relief efforts will take longer than 10 years in rebuilding lives, homes, schools and hospitals.”
How to help
Phoenix and Chengdu, China, have been sister cities for more than 20 years. The city’s Web site provides information on disaster relief. Other helpful sites include the American Red Cross and Mercy Corps.
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