Witness to Disaster

thebeijinger — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:16:22 +0800

Tom Shanahan is the television presenter for the CCTV-9 program Rediscovering China. Below is his first-hand account of reporting on the scene about the aftermath of last month’s tragic Sichuan earthquake. The first part of the program airs today on CCTV-9 at 1:30pm and 9:30pm, and you can catch the second installment next Monday, June 9, at 5:30am, 1:30pm and 9:30pm.

On Wednesday May 14th we were to travel to Guangxi province for a shoot, however our plane was delayed because it was being used to transport doctors from Beijing to Wenchuan. This was my first indication of just how bad the situation was.

Like most people, we felt the tremor in our office in Beijing, and because the initial shock brought down communications, we initially thought that only 900 students in one school had been buried.

While in Beijing I discussed with the director that we should go to Wenchuan to cover the earthquake. She didn’t have the authority to make this decision so I sent my producer several text messages and calls stressing the importance of this story. He agreed, however he had to contact his supervisor. I knew there would be a lot of red tape as this was a natural disaster and foreigners had never been allowed to cover natural disasters in China before.

The next day in Nanning, the producer told me his request had been approved by the senior officials at CCTV. We were to change course immediately and head for Sichuan.

The Beijinger Blog - Tom Shanahan

Witness to Disaster