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Dubai: Even though Gao Li Li had to spend four days on the road with her elderly parents and sister, she says she considers herself to be lucky.
The 48-year-old Chinese, who is a resident of Dubai, was on holiday with her family in Chengdu, China, when the earthquake struck last week killing an estimated 50,000 people.
"I thought I was going to die," she told Gulf News over telephone on Saturday. "My sister's house is on the 11th floor and the building was shaking for nearly five minutes... Everyone was terrified. There are villages in the mountains nearby that have disappeared," she said.
It was ill-luck that Gao was in Chengdu when disaster struck. Her parents stay in a far away region bordering Mongolia and she had brought them over to Chengdu to show them her new house and meet with her sister, who stays in the city.
And once the earthquake hit there was no escape because the communications and transport systems shut down.
The hours and days after the principal tremors were trying. The family's initial concern was to somehow get out of the building and into the open - a tough task considering Gao's father and mother are 82 and 79 years old, respectively.
"My father is healthy, but my mother needed some help," Gao said.
The family spent the next four days on the road - just like millions of others across the region - subsisting on basic facilities and praying that the aftershocks would stop. The rain and cold made conditions worse.
Meanwhile, back home in Dubai, Gao's Indian fiance Raju Rajendra was praying, too. Even though Gao had called him right after the earthquake, he was worried because she sounded petrified.
"She just kept saying, 'I want to come back to Dubai'," said Rajendra, who himself has seen calamity, having witnessed Saddam Hussain's invasion of Kuwait when he was there.
"I didn't know what to do. Imagine the chances - she had gone to Chengdu because she wanted to meet her parents and show them the house."
Gao and her family are back in the house now and she has booked a ticket for May 26. "I can't want to come back home to Dubai," she said cheerfully.
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