Reporter’s Notebook: Xiangshui Blast Leaves Wounds and Scars That Won’t Fade

On the afternoon of March 21, I was in Zhenjiang, a city in Jiangsu province, working on a story. As my interview wrapped up, I looked at my phone — an explosion had happened in Xiangshui, only 333 kilometers (207 miles) away. As night fell and I approached my destination, the highway was filled with fire trucks and ambulances going from Yancheng and nearby Sheyang county to the site. The sheer number of rescue vehicles on the road gave me the feeling that the scene I was approaching would be very different from anything I had seen before. The silence of slow-moving traffic along the dark highway was broken by wailing sirens.