Most of us have followed the death and devastation from China's 7.9 magnitude earthquake on May 12 via the news media, but more than a dozen members of the campus community experienced it firsthand.

Three UC Davis faculty members were in China at the time of the temblor: plant scientist Shu Geng, agricultural engineer Zhongli Pan and meteorologist Bryan Weare. And toxicologist Ron Tjeerdema was in Hong Kong. All were on university business, and all reported in after the quake to say that they were safe and either headed home or continuing with their visits in China.

In addition, 10 UC Davis students are studying in China. On the day the quake hit, UC Davis officials learned that eight students in Shanghai were accounted for and safe.

The other two students, based in Beijing, were among 33 UC students on a trip to Huangshan-Hangzhou the day of the quake. the next day, UC officials confirmed that they were OK and returning to Beijing by train.

As for faculty, Pan, an associate adjunct professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and an expert on postharvest and processing technologies, had traveled to Sichuan Province on May 4 on a two-week visit to several universities, where he was due to lecture and build on research collaborations.

At 2:30 p.m. local time, Pan was preparing to give a seminar to more than 1,000 students at the Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University in Shaanxi Province, located directly northeast of Sichuan Province, where the earthquake's greatest damage occurred.

"He felt a pretty strong quake with the building swinging for over three minutes, and also felt several aftershocks," reported Pan's wife, agricultural engineering professor Ruihong Zhang, who received a phone call from her husband the morning of May 14.

When the initial quake subsided, the university evacuated the dorms and classrooms for the day, and hotels and other businesses in the city of Yangling were closed, Zhang said. She noted that her husband was able to fly out the next day from Xian, the capital of Shaanxi Province, and continue with a visit to Jiangnan University in Wuxi, located in Jiangsu Province on China's eastern coast.

"Zhongli and all of our families are okay," Zhang said. She encouraged members of the campus and surrounding communities to consider providing donations and assistance to support people in need in China.

Also in Beijing was Geng, a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, who is in China for a year representing UC's systemwide 10 + 10 Alliance, reported Deidra Madderra, management services officer for the plant sciences department. The alliance is a partnership between the 10 UC campuses and 10 of China's premier public research universities.

'Something terrible has happened to our environment'

Although Geng was far from the earthquake's epicenter, he was nevertheless impacted by its destruction. "It is devastating to the people in Sichuan, which is over 1,000 miles away from where I am now in Beijing," Geng wrote in a message to his department. "We probably would not know the whole impact, as the story is unraveling. Something terrible has happened to our environment. The extremes are becoming regular."

Tjeerdema arrived in Hong Kong on May 11 for a weeklong visit, focused on solidifying the details of a research and teaching exchange agreement between UC Davis and the City University of Hong Kong. He also is serving there as an external academic adviser for undergraduate and graduate programs in the department of biology and chemistry.

"Hong Kong is quite distant from the quake and, while it has been reported to have been felt here, it was not noticeable to me," Tjeerdema wrote in a May 13 e-mail. "While quake coverage is all over the news, life in Hong Kong appears to be pretty normal."

Weare's visit to China began May 6 in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, where he was meeting with faculty and graduate students on collaborative, regional climate-modeling research for the Sichuan Basin, according to Jan Hopmans, chair of the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources. Weare left May 10 for Beijing to present a seminar at the National Climate Center.

Hopmans reported that Weare checked in via e-mail the morning of May 14, noting that he was fine and planning to fly home to California with his wife the following day.

Red Cross relief effort

For people who want to help, the American Red Cross has established a China Earthquake Relief Fund to support emergency relief efforts in China. Assistance will include sending supplies, mobilizing relief workers and providing financial resources.

Red Cross donations: redcross.org.