I just got an e-mail from a woman I met at an educational travel conference in February. Her name is Mei and her organization is WildChina:

It's been such an emotional day here, dealing with the aftermath of the quake in China.

I just want to give you a quick update on WildChina and our clients. Overall, all of our clients, guides and drivers are safe in the area. The most amazing thing was to experience the outpouring of support and concern from our past clients and future clients.

We did not have any clients in the epicenter, fortunately. But we do have a few individual travelers in Xi'an who felt the jolt strongly. Two of our American travelers just checked into the hotel in Xi'an when they felt the strong shake. They were immediately evacuated outside. They stayed in the street for a few hours before the hotel declared it safe to go back in. Some of our other travelers were out touring at the time the quake happened. We are working very closely with these travelers to determine whether to reroute them home earlier than expected. We are also keeping their relatives at home informed of developments.

We have in the pipeline, a group of 30 travelers to Chengdu in the next month. We are rerouting them. Another five departures for small family groups planned to go to Jiuzhaigou National Park, which is to the North of Chengdu in the Tibetan area. We are rerouting them as well.

Our local guides in Chengdu are all fine. One of our guides actually dashed out of safety to accompany a US news organization to the epicenter to cover the story. We have reached all our guides either by phone or by email.

Now, from our clients, our office was flooded with phone-calls and emails of concern and support. Most clients are already in action to bring grassroots relief to the region. One particular client - an educational institution - has been planning a trip to go to Sichuan. They've expressed clear wishes that they want to stay with the course to go there, but to help! All our employees in the office are very touched by this outpouring. It's one of those rare opportunities to know that their mundane activities of ticket and hotel booking are connecting people in different ways and are helping people in need.