Defending cowardice is despicable

The May 12 earthquake has yielded many stories, many heartwarming or heartbreaking, but recently there has been a spate of reports that brought to light moral dilemmas that cannot be neatly categorized.

Fan Meizhong is a teacher at a Dujiangyan school. When the earthquake struck, he took off immediately and ran as far away from the school building as possible. He did shout "Earthquake!" to his pupils, but did not stop to help them in any way. Fortunately, the building did not collapse and none of his pupils were hurt.

Did Fan do the right thing?