20150731回顧歷史的今天 The Love of Tzu Chi Volunteers Over the Years
Looking around the world, there are so many disasters. Mankind is the source to these disasters.
A United Nations report projects that the global population will reach as high as 9.7 billion by 2050. With the current population growth, people already are not spiritually harmonious and many nations suffer as societies become unstable.
With such a high global population, the most important impact is climate change. The greater the change is the more natural disasters will occur.
If we don’t educate and correct people’s view on their lifestyle in time, we indeed face many risks and dangers. We have to be more mindful in dealing with this. Today is July 31. Last year, close to midnight of July 31, gas explosions occurred in Kaohsiung.
At around 8 p.m. residents had reported a smell of gas to the police and firefighters, whom, upon hearing of this, quickly went to the scene and cordoned off the area. Then, they started searching for the source of the smell, source of the leak.
For precautionary reason, they sprayed water around the area to reduce the density of the gas. Learning of that, at around 11 p.m. Tzu Chi volunteers, including a Tzu Cheng team leader, were bringing bottled waters to the police and firefighters in the cordoned zone.
They ran into a former borough chief who joined the volunteers in delivering water to the police and firefighters. After they delivered the water, our volunteers then headed back and stayed in the covered passage way of the stores.
Then, all of a sudden they heard a loud blast behind them and then they were pushed into the store by the powerful blast. When they look back, they saw raging fires. The difference of to live or die is just in a matter of seconds.
This disaster started after the sudden loud sound of the explosions. For over 40 days, volunteers helped the residents impacted by the explosion. During that time, the weather was extremely hot, Tzu Chi volunteers still went out to care for the affectees whether in the rain or under the scorching sun.
Every time I recall that period of time, I always want to express my gratitude to the volunteers with a deep bow for giving of themselves and continuing to love the affectees. Volunteers visited the residents door-to-door to calm their traumatized hearts.
This is the power of love to heal. Volunteers also delivered meals to them every day. All in all, in these 40 days of time, there are many loving stories to tell. This shows the love of people in a disaster situation.
In Tzu Chi’s history on this same date, July 31 in 1996, Typhoon Herb made a landfall over Taiwan, which caused severe damage to many places from Keelung, Xizhi, and Taipei in northern Taiwan all the way down to Kaohsiung and further south to the mountainous areas of Pingtung.
The scale of the disaster was huge. Mountain roads were cut off by landslides. A temporary walkway made by bamboo was purposely built along the side of the cliff for emergency aid.
Tzu Chi volunteers carried sacks of food and rice and walked on the narrow bamboo walkway supporting themselves by touching the wall of the cliff. In another instance, when they encountered a broken bridge, they were not deterred by this and still climbed a bamboo ladder to get across and carried on their journey to deliver aid.
Look, whenever I saw footage of this I always cannot help but remind everyone how dangerous it truly was.
When seeing Tzu Chi volunteers at risk, I felt the great burden to ensure their safety. Such are Tzu Chi volunteers. To help typhoon survivors, they willingly risked their lives. Since the typhoon made landfall in Taiwan on July 31, we had been collecting disaster information and contacting volunteers for the latest updates. On August 7, I set off to survey the disasters areas around Taiwan.
When we went to a flooded village in central Taiwan, I saw villagers’ feet developing infection from prolong exposure to the floodwater, I quickly asked a Tzu Chi doctor to send ointments to the disaster area for these villagers. When we were there, the villagers kept on asking us to go check their houses. They said, “The floodwater is still this high. It’s at waist high. It’s up to my thigh”. “Really?” I asked.
They said, “Come and take a look.” Actually, I had already planned to go survey their houses. So, I went. But, how to reach houses that had floodwater up to thigh-high? Ciyang, a volunteer, went to a grocery store and brought very long plastic bags.
As I was preparing to wear the long plastics bags on my legs, a man said to me “Master, are you really going into the water?” “Don’t do it. I’ll go in and show you.” He went in the water for me and spared me from wearing the plastic bags.
He went in the water and pointed out where the water was at its highest. That flooding was in Dongshi Village. It was a long story. All in all, time keeps on passing. The typhoon that struck Taiwan today in 1996 caused severe flooding and impacted the lives of so many people from northern to southern Taiwan. Tzu Chi volunteers not only provided material aid, they also helped with disaster cleanup and other assistance.
So, time can pass. Yet, Tzu Chi continues to help people around Taiwan throughout the years. However, the recipients of Tzu Chi’s aid might have already forgotten about it. Yet, Tzu Chi’s work was vividly recorded down.
Seeing this history and thinking back to that time, I’m truly grateful to the devotion and love of Tzu Chi volunteers. We also see news from the Philippines. In a rural village, Tzu Chi had built the villagers prefabricated houses.
Two years ago, Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) destroyed a bridge to the village. As a result, the village children had to cross a river to go to school every day. In July, Tzu Chi volunteers and local entrepreneurs worked together and built a suspension bridge for the village which is opened for use. Now children can walk safely to schools. This is in the Philippines.
The rice form Taiwan has also arrived in the Philippines. In this world, when everyone pools together their love, they can give big help to people in need. So, let us seize the moment to help people.
首頁 