On the afternoon of May 12, a massive earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale ripped through southwest China, killing at least 70,000 people, leaving more than five million homeless, and incurring damage estimated at $20 billion.

Meg Young ’07, a staff consultant with the international development group ECOLOGIA, was with her colleague and classmate Kate Leyland ’07 in the Sichuan Province city of Chengdu, 80 kilometers southeast of the quake’s epicenter, meeting with bankers when the Earth shook.