"May 12 began like any other day for 9-year-old Li Yao, a student in Shifang City in the northern part of China’s Sichuan Province. Like any other day, she had gone to school that morning, gone home for lunch and returned to school that afternoon. Around 2:30 p.m., shortly after class began again, something out of the ordinary happened that would change her life, along with the lives of everyone in that part of the country. The ground began to emit a low-frequency noise, and the entire building started to shake violently. Unbeknownst to the students, this was the onset of 2008’s Great Sichuan Earthquake, which would, in moments, decimate their city and kill an untold number of its inhabitants. All they knew was that the earth, some three stories below, was shaking. As she followed the rest of the students rushing to the door, Li was pushed from the crumbling building to the ground below."