Beichuan, The Preserved Ruins of an Earthquake Destroyed Town

Few places provide the opportunity to see the aftermath of a violent natural calamity. The town of Beichuan is one of them. Beichuan is a rural town located approximately 143 kilometers north of the provincial capital of Chengdu, in China, in a valley well-known for the Longmen or Dragon Gate seismic fault. In May 12, 2008, the town was ravaged to the ground by a devastating earthquake measuring 7.9 magnitude in the Richer scale that rocked the region and reduced large swathes of Sichuan province to a hellish jumble of concrete and limbs. More than 90,000 people are believed to have died - 8,600 in Beichuan alone, or almost half of the town’s population. Among these were 1,300 children when a large populated school collapsed.