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I can still remember how one year ago as I was sitting at my desk in my 29th floor apartment in Beijing, I could feel my apartment building move back and forth due to tremors from over a thousand miles away in Wenchuan (that's like the distance from San Francisco to Denver). Little did I know at that time that 69,000 people would lose their lives due to this single disaster, not to mention the 19,000 people missing. For comparison, hurricane Katrina 4 years ago, one of the worst natural disasters in the USA in modern times, left under 2000 people dead . So many stories of courage, perseverance, selflessness ( the photo shows a policewoman feeding someone else's baby), bravery, sorrow and grief have been told since then.
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One year on, reconstruction of the whole area is in full swing. New homes have been built,
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new schools to withstand scale 9 earthquakes are being built, commerce and tourism have started up again
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There is hope again for the region, and the children especially are being told to work hard and with determination for a better future.
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