An encounter with a girl

In the rescue operations after the earthquake, I was working at a temporary installation station for the dead bodies. Amid a lot of dead bodies and grief-stricken bereaved families, a girl who was staring into the burned pot in front of her knees, drew my attention very strongly. Looking into the pot, I found there were remains in it. She was just staring at them without crying or weeping. At the moment I talked to her, she suddenly burst into tears. My words probably removed her patience from crying. The remains in the pot were her mother's.

After the earthquake, her mother and she were trapped under their collapsed house. Fortunately, she escaped by herself after many hours of struggling but her mother couldn't. In the meantime, a fire began to approach them. She looked for someone to help her mother and shouted but her shouting didn't reach anyone. She did her best to help her mother but she could not find her mother's figure. Finally she found her mother's hand, but her hand was covered with blood. She shouted and received an answer from her mother. The last words from her mother were "Thank you. Go and escape.". She ran away from the approaching fire and her mother. Soon the fire enveloped the collapsed house and her mother. After the tragedy, she did not remember what happened to her well. She said she came here to look for her mother. She was protecting her mother by putting her mother's remains into the pot. She was not crying anymore when she finished telling her story. I could surely see and feel strength, grief and beauty in her eyes.

-Student's impressions-

I knew the fact that many people were killed in this earthquake from reading newspapers. But I have never thought about how each person was killed and how his or her bereaved family was grieved.