Two years ago, Seva Canada board member, Susan Erdmann, spent three months in Yushu at her own expense, working as a volunteer in the hospital and photographing the Seva eye camps that were being held in the region. In this blog, Susan reflects on what she has seen, then and now and shares her photographs of happier days in Yushu.

Photograph of Yushu after the earthquake. From Rokpa www.rokpa.ca

Susan writes: The pictures and further news from Yushu are terrifying.

I look at the pictures of Yushu today and I can’t imagine how anyone survived. The pictures I took and the memories of this busy little town with its flow of herders and nomads, the small shop keepers and vendors, students and beggars and monks and nuns. Where are they all now?  Are they under the rubble? Did they hopefully survive? Will I ever know? It is so sad.

Hospital in Yushu where the eye camp was held This is the photo of the hospital in Yushu where Seva works and where the eye camps I witnessed were held. NOTE: We had first heard that it was completely destroyed, but Kunga, director of Seva Tibet, has told us on April 19th that it is damaged and cracked, not destroyed as we had been told. Photo by Susan Erdmann, Seva Canada

The hospital, now collapsed, was an easy target for a quake and was pretty minimal in all that it could offer, but it was the only hospital and most of the staff are now gone. This area, so challenged with life generally, has now nothing to fall back on save what is brought to them from the outside. Will the outside continue to remember their needs? Will they get the help they need even more? What can be salvaged here? I know it will happen... somehow it will come together. The Tibetans are tough, resilient and accepting. I am glad Seva will be involved in their recovery. They will have to see with even clearer vision for the future. Here are more photos of Yushu that Susan took before the earthquake, in contrast with the devastation now.

A collapsed building in Yushu after the earthquake

Before the earthquake in Qinghai: main temple of the monastery south of Yushu. It is reported that at least 40 monks died in the earthquake. Photo by Susan Erdmann, Seva Canada

Before the quake: This is the interior courtyard of Rokpa's orphanage and School for Tibetan Medicine in Yushu, Qinghai. Photo by Susan Erdmann

Before the earthquake, a street scene in the centre of Yushu. Photo by Susan Erdmann, Seva Canada