Quake witness: I was buried under cases of wine

• Source: Global Times
• [11:40 April 16 2010]
• Comments

By Liu Chang

“I was sleeping when the quake hit,” said Zhao Rui, who recently moved from Xining to Yushu. “But then I heard the clattering of wine bottles, and so I woke up.”

Zhao was working for a wine factory and there were cases of wine in his dorm. He didn’t realize it was an earthquake until dozens of wine cases all began to shake at the same time.

“The boxes were shaking violently. Before I could jump out of my bed and run, I was buried under the boxes of wine,” Zhao recalled.

After a few minutes, Zhao’s colleagues discovered he was still in the dorm, and rushed to his room on the fourth floor to rescue him. They found him from under a pile of bottles unscathed. When they ran out to the open area outside the building, they found the dorm building had cracks in several floors from the earthquake.

“We will gather together for some warmth to get through the night,” said Zhao. “We dare not go back to our rooms.”