I thought I’d share this heart-wrenching story I received from a friend in China yesterday relating to the devastating earthquake last week –
This is just one of many such harrowing tales emerging from the disaster which really brings home the reality of the situation.
I sometimes feel that it’s all too easy for us to divorce ourselves from tragedies that happen on the other side of the world. We sit and watch them unfold on the news in near real-time with the media doing their bit to dramatise the situation ala 24. However, the suffering is very real and the numbers involved are almost unthinkable – whatever we may think about the way the Chinese government sometimes conduct themselves in this instance it’s difficult to find fault.
I find it sad that it often seems to take a national tragedy to unite people but at the same time encouraging that there is still a thread of humanity left in the world. The scenes on the streets in China during the time of national mourning were a particularly moving testament to this. Perhaps if everyone felt this sort of compassion for each other all the time the world we live in would be a much nicer place…
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