Tangshan was on my bucket list and a very appropriate place to visit at the end of the tour. All the wars remembered thus far were of human making and the suffering a result of power struggles. More powerful in terms of destruction and loss of life per minute was the earthquake that flattened the city of Tangshan. Tangshan became a bucket list item after buying the video, Aftershock, some years ago which dramatically stirs the emotions with scenes of helplessness against the forces of nature. In the evening of our return to home in Dalian, we watched it again with a renewed sense of astonishment.

I was moved by the Vietnam Memorial in Washington some years ago that listed all those who died during that war and the 9/11 memorial listings too. The immensity of the Tangshan memorial is not something easy to take in. It looks a little like a set of huge solar panels. Each cell has forty names of people who died. Each panel is 15 cells high and 24 wide. There are 12 panels and names are on both back and front. It's mind boggling. Over 240,000 people died, 160,000 injured, 7,000 complete families wiped out.