At 14:28, May 12, 2008, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Wenchuan county, Sichuan province. This powerful earthquake has left its mark on more than half of the vast nation. The badly-hit cities around the epicenter were almost razed completely. Schoolhouses, residential and office buildings collapsed, killing 70,000, injuring 340,000 and leaving 10 million people homeless. Most roads and bridges were buckled.
After the quake, the construction machinery industry, both domestic companies and joint ventures, were moved by a strong sense of social responsibility. XCMG, Zoomlion, Sany, Liugong, Caterpillar, Komatsu, BQ Tadano, Volvo, Hitachi, and Cummins worked together across national boundaries. They donated money and construction machinery, and dispatched special technicians to the affected areas, to bring relief at maximum speed.
The golden period for rescue when an earthquake hits is the first 72 hours: the sooner help arrives, the greater the hope of saving lives. One of China’s last major earthquakes hit Tangshan city, in Hebei province (neighbour of Beijing) in 1976. That quake left more than 240,000 dead. Zoomlion subsidiary Puyuan’s employees and its cranes participated in the rescue operation in 1976, so they have more experience, and are familiar with using cranes in quake rescue.
When the Sichuan earthquake struck, Zoomlion chairman Zhan Chunxin was abroad for a business trip. He knew that Puyuan had experience in quake rescue, so he called Gao Tong, who is one of the top managers of Zoomlion group and has worked for Puyuan for several decades. Zhan asked Gao and other top managers to immediately organise a rescue.
Zhan ordered the managers: “Try best to make a counterplan and disaster-relief program as soon as possible, and push ahead to organise emergency rescue teams to the affected areas.”
Zoomlion set up a special rescue headquarters for the emergency on the night of 12 May. The rescue headquarters asked the Sichuan branch, in Chengdu, to contact local agents, and mobilise truck cranes from around the province to organise disaster relief teams to go to the affected areas. The Sichuan branch contacted their customers around the province immediately, and rented their cranes for the rescue. Zoomlion paid the rental expenses to their customers. These cranes gathered at Zoomlion Sichuan branch and arrived in the affected area on May 13.
At Zoomlion’s home city, in Changsha, more than 1,600km away, other teams were put together with technicians, construction machinery drivers and volunteers. The teams, with 28 pieces of construction machinery worth CNY20m (USD2.9m), rushed to the disaster area on the day after the quake.
The foundations of the road to the epicentre were very weak. Wang Chunyang, chief engineer at Zoomlion and the leader of the company’s rescue team, divided the team into two groups. The first group was equipped with light construction machinery, such as sprinklers and removal vehicles, and lead the way along the dangerous roads. A second group of rescuers, equipped with heavy machinery, stopped and waited to make sure the route was safe.
The fabric of the earth that the teams crossed was still moving, well after the quake: they faced landslides and stones slipping from shattered mountains. Before they passed by one of the most dangerous mountain roads, Wang Chunyang (who had travelled with the first, light equipment, group) called back to the second group. He told the rescuers: “Disassemble the crane outriggers, to prevent the crane being caught up in stones on the road. Every truck should keep 100m distance apart, and as long as the engines keep running, we must rush forward without any stop, no matter if tyres blow or fuel tanks are ruptured by stone from the landslide.”
On May 14, the Zoomlion head office team arrived at Beichuan county, the epicentre of the earthquake. Meanwhile, Sany relief workers departed from their headquarters, also in Changsha, with eight truck cranes and seven excavators, lead by the company’s assistant president.
The original roads were buckled or blocked by the quake. Temporary roads cut through the rugged landscape were very narrow with weak foundations. Landslides could come at any time. As the heavy machinery passed through, the roads could collapse beneath it.
The team members knew though that rescue teams in the affected areas needed the equipment urgently, despite these obstacles, and they must reach them as soon as possible. The drivers operated boldly but carefully, taking the heavy machinery across the broken rock with caution. One of the drivers reportedly said, “We were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice at that time.”
The chairman of XCMG, Wang Min, dispatched a first team of truck cranes to Sichuan province, on the day of the accident. Every XCMG crane that was waiting to be delivered to customers around Sichuan province was redirected to Chengdu, and then rushed to the epicenter together.
Since small-tonnage truck cranes couldn’t meet the heavy rescue demands of the quake, XCMG then delivered another three groups of large tonnage cranes, along with 20 skilled crane drivers. By the early morning of May 16, XCMG had dispatched four rescue teams with 38 experienced drivers, 25 truck cranes, and various other types of construction machinery.
Among the ruins
Bei Chuan Middle School was one of the worst hit by this quake, with three schoolhouses almost flattened. There were several hundred students and teachers in class when the earthquake struck, and few escaped before the collapse. Most of the students and teachers were trapped in the rubble, and there were heavy casualties.
The persistent rain and continuous aftershocks brought great difficulties to the search and disaster relief. The local government and people organised the rescue immediately after the quake, but the disaster relief progressed at a slow pace because of the lack of large construction machinery.
Once the earthquake happened, the disaster relief teams organised by the government tried to cleave roads to the epicenter using excavators. While the excavators were more useful than cranes for this task, cranes were vital for removing concrete beams and other heavy materials.
The parents and family members of the students trapped under the debris welcomed the heavy equipment teams as saviours. The Zoomlion rescue team went to work as soon as they arrived at the school on May 14. Working with the People’s Liberation Army and paramilitary troops, they rescued 21 students before May 15.
As time wore on, and more people died, temperatures rose and rain poured down: together, this brought the risk that epidemics could occur at any moment. Bei Chuan county had to be sealed off. The Zoomlion rescue team moved to the neighbouring county and prepared for a new rescue effort.
The Sany team went to work at Mian Yang City, one of the worst-hit areas, with 15 cranes and excavators. They rescued as long as daylight held, and worked through the night to develop their rescue plan. Most drivers stayed in their cranes’ cabs since there were no places for rest, with many working day and night to rescue as many as they could: several drivers worked to the point of collapse, falling exhausted at the controls of their crane. On noon of May 17, the Sany rescue team pulled a survivor to safety who had been trapped for 117 hours in the debris.
At Dujiangyan city, XCMG team members worked 18 hours per day, without stopping for food or drink. One rescue worker reported: “We wanted to try our best to rescue as many people as possible, but the collapse was so serious, every time we lifted a piece of rubble away, we were afraid we would cause further collapse. We could only rescue two people at Xiang’e Town Middle School after a whole night working.”
On the same day the earthquake occurred, Zoomlion launched a crane operator recruitment drive, through its website. Two operators from State Power Net contacted Zoomlion immediately and flew to Sichuan from Liaoning, in the north-east of China.
Sany not only participated in the rescue, but also took up the task of operator training at the same time. Sany decided to train some volunteers who had some basic experience of machinery operation. This suggestion got support from the local government, and 11 volunteers were gathered by the government immediately.
Help from across borders
Help didn’t just come from local Chinese manufacturers. Terex donated CNY20m (USD2.9m) and provided 105 truck cranes and an excavator, worth a total of CNY60.5m (USD8.8m). The American firm dispatched a team of several dozen operators and technical support engineers. Manitowoc matched donations its Asian employees made to the Chinese Red Cross.
Japanese joint venture BQ-Tadano donated one 35t and two 25t truck cranes worth CNY5.5m (USD0.79m), and organised a rescue team with seven technicians to the affected areas. Cummins donated generators, components, and grease for Cummins products. Their total donation exceeded CNY6m (USD0.87m). Hitachi donated JPY100m (USD0.9m) worth of construction equipment.
