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Quake reporter tells of misery

The horrors of the Chinese earthquake are being brought home to the people of Britain by a former Goole Grammar School pupil working for the BBC.

Michael Bristow, who was born in Goole and grew up in East Cowick, has been filing stories of terrible human suffering in the quake zone.

Michael, who used to work for the Press Association in Howden, was immediately dispatched to the earthquake zone when it struck on Monday.

Together with a BBC crew, Michael flew to the earthquake zone overnight and immediately began filing stories for TV, radio and the internet.

Michael said the human suffering he had seen in Sichuan province, where the quake struck, was "difficult to put into words".

He added: "I've seen bodies that have been squashed by giant boulders and whole town flattened. One town, Beichuan, was completely churned up."

In one instance Michael saw a a car sitting on top of a pile of rubble - 50 metres high.

'The most moving thing I saw was outside a middle school, where parents were sitting silently watching rescue workers looking for their children," he said. "Hundreds of children were trapped - probably dead - inside. One woman was simply sittig on the ground, rocking backwards and forwards, sobbing her heart out."

Michael's team hired a four-wheel drive and went out to the earthquake zone every day from their base in the town of Chengdu, the provincial capital.

Michael, who is one of four BBC correspondents in China, had been staying in Beijing and was nowhere near the earthquake when it struck.

The epicentre was in a town called Wenchuan in south-west China, which is 100 miles from the capital.

"Still, other people in Beijing did feel the earthquake," he said.

Michael rang his family as soon as the quake struck to tell them he was okay and where he was going. His first call was to his wife Helen Leavey, who is also a journalist but currently taking leave to look after their two children Samuel, four, and one-year-old Matilda.

Helen passed the message on to Michael's mother Janet Halkon, who lives on North Street in Goole.

Michael has been living in China since 2005, when he went to study the language. He has been reporting for the BBC since May last year, based in Beijing.

Since the quake Michael - who has never worked on a major disaster before - has been impressed by the rescue efforts conducted by the Chinese government.

He said: "The government has reacted very well to the earthquake; they were well- prepared in terms of both rescue teams and machinery that would be needed. These things were deployed quickly and Chinese people also donated money and goods - some drove to the earthquake areas themselves to deliver food."

Latest estimates put the death toll at over 40,000, with a further 32,000 still missing. Up to five million more have lost their homes as a result of the quake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter Scale.

"The government is putting up temporary tent villages across the affected zone to house these people," said Michael. "These villages are being built in just one day."

Michael was previously a print journalist in the UK, working on the weekly title the Shoreham Herald, the Cardiff evening paper the South Wales Echo, and the Press Association in Howden.

After leaving Goole Grammar School he studied Politics and East Asian Studies at Newcastle University, but said he always knew he wanted to be a journalist.

Published on 22nd May 2008 in News.

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