China Earthquake
May 13, 2008 8:32:38 GMT 1
Post by Shi Da Dao on May 13, 2008 8:32:38 GMT 1
Hindu Times
www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200805131101.htm
'Death toll in China earthquake climbs to about 10,000
CHENGDU (AP): The death toll in China's worst earthquake in three decades hit at least 10,000 people Tuesday, but was expected to soar amid reports of staggering numbers of students trapped in collapsed schools.
Rescuers also were scrambling to reach the cut-off epicenter of the Monday's earthquake, which struck central Sichuan province but killed people in at least eight other areas of China.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that nearly 10,000 people died in Sichuan alone and 300 others in other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.
It said 1,000 students and teachers were killed or missing after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake crushed a high school in Beichuan county, just east of the quake's epicenter. The deaths were separate from another collapsed school where 900 students are feared dead.
Xinhua said a six- or seven-story building at the Beichuan school was reduced to a pile of rubble about two yards (meters) high.
``I just pray my child is safe and sound,'' one tearful mother was quoted as saying.
The school has more than 2,000 students and teachers in three school buildings. The other two buildings collapsed partially, Xinhua said.
It said up to 5,000 people were killed and 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan, in a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. The government has poured more than 16,000 troops into the area with tens of thousands more on the way.
Rain was complicating the rescue effort, which Premier Wen Jiabao said was forecast for the next several days. Wen, who flew to Sichuan to oversee rescue efforts, said a push was on to clear roads and restore electricity as soon as possible.
The quake's epicenter was in Wenchuan, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Chengdu, but landslides, boulders and downed trees blocked roads into the area.
Xinhua reported that efforts to reach Wenchuan and surrounding areas by land, water and air has failed so far. Rains had not made it possible to land helicopters, and police have even been sent by boat in a local reservoir.
Wen held an early morning emergency meeting in Dujiangyan to the north of Chengdu and ordered troops and police to clear the road further north to Wenchuan, which remained cut off.
``We must try our best to open up roads to the epicenter and rescue people trapped in disaster-hit areas,'' he said. Wen said the earthquake ``was more serious'' than expected.
One lane of the main street into Dujiangyan was filled with a stream of people leaving homes that had collapsed or were no longer safe to live in.
Zhou Chun, a 70-year-old retired mechanic, was fleeing toward Chengdu with a soiled light blue blanket draped over his shoulders.
``My wife died in the quake. My house was destroyed. I am going to Chengdu, but I don't know where I'll live,'' he told The Associated Press.
Zhou and other survivors were pulling luggage and clutching plastic bags of food amid a steady drizzle and the constant wall of ambulances.
The only contact with Wenchuan so far, Xinhua said, was a satellite phone call from the local Communist Party secretary to appeal for air drops of tents, food and medicine. ``We also need medical workers to save the injured people here,'' Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by satellite phone.
Wang said there were 57 reported deaths so far, with more than 300 other people seriously injured.
``This is only a rough number of casualties ... It is highly possible the figure will rise as the casualty numbers in the mountainous areas are not available,'' Wang was quoted as saying.
He estimated that at least 30,000 of the county's 105,000 residents slept outside Monday night.
Wang said there has been no information from the townships of Yingxiu, Wolong and Xuankou at the epicenter of the quake. The three have a total population of more than 24,000.
Fifteen missing British tourists were believed in that area at the time of the quake and were ``out of reach,'' Xinhua reported.
They were likely visiting the Wolong Nature Reserve, home to more than 100 giant pandas, whose fate also was not known, Xinhua said. Xinhua reported that 60 pandas at another breeding center in Chengdu were safe.
Disasters pose a test to China's communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth and providing relief in emergencies.
Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, as the government was already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Beijing Olympics this August.
Expressions of sympathy and offers of help poured in from the United States, Japan and the European Union, among others.
``I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy,'' U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said no aid requests had been made by China.
The quake was China's deadliest since 1976, when 240,000 people were killed in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing in 1976.
The latest quake hit a fault where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands _ near communities that held sometimes violent protests against Chinese rule in mid-March. '
www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200805131101.htm
'Death toll in China earthquake climbs to about 10,000
CHENGDU (AP): The death toll in China's worst earthquake in three decades hit at least 10,000 people Tuesday, but was expected to soar amid reports of staggering numbers of students trapped in collapsed schools.
Rescuers also were scrambling to reach the cut-off epicenter of the Monday's earthquake, which struck central Sichuan province but killed people in at least eight other areas of China.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that nearly 10,000 people died in Sichuan alone and 300 others in other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.
It said 1,000 students and teachers were killed or missing after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake crushed a high school in Beichuan county, just east of the quake's epicenter. The deaths were separate from another collapsed school where 900 students are feared dead.
Xinhua said a six- or seven-story building at the Beichuan school was reduced to a pile of rubble about two yards (meters) high.
``I just pray my child is safe and sound,'' one tearful mother was quoted as saying.
The school has more than 2,000 students and teachers in three school buildings. The other two buildings collapsed partially, Xinhua said.
It said up to 5,000 people were killed and 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan, in a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. The government has poured more than 16,000 troops into the area with tens of thousands more on the way.
Rain was complicating the rescue effort, which Premier Wen Jiabao said was forecast for the next several days. Wen, who flew to Sichuan to oversee rescue efforts, said a push was on to clear roads and restore electricity as soon as possible.
The quake's epicenter was in Wenchuan, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Chengdu, but landslides, boulders and downed trees blocked roads into the area.
Xinhua reported that efforts to reach Wenchuan and surrounding areas by land, water and air has failed so far. Rains had not made it possible to land helicopters, and police have even been sent by boat in a local reservoir.
Wen held an early morning emergency meeting in Dujiangyan to the north of Chengdu and ordered troops and police to clear the road further north to Wenchuan, which remained cut off.
``We must try our best to open up roads to the epicenter and rescue people trapped in disaster-hit areas,'' he said. Wen said the earthquake ``was more serious'' than expected.
One lane of the main street into Dujiangyan was filled with a stream of people leaving homes that had collapsed or were no longer safe to live in.
Zhou Chun, a 70-year-old retired mechanic, was fleeing toward Chengdu with a soiled light blue blanket draped over his shoulders.
``My wife died in the quake. My house was destroyed. I am going to Chengdu, but I don't know where I'll live,'' he told The Associated Press.
Zhou and other survivors were pulling luggage and clutching plastic bags of food amid a steady drizzle and the constant wall of ambulances.
The only contact with Wenchuan so far, Xinhua said, was a satellite phone call from the local Communist Party secretary to appeal for air drops of tents, food and medicine. ``We also need medical workers to save the injured people here,'' Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by satellite phone.
Wang said there were 57 reported deaths so far, with more than 300 other people seriously injured.
``This is only a rough number of casualties ... It is highly possible the figure will rise as the casualty numbers in the mountainous areas are not available,'' Wang was quoted as saying.
He estimated that at least 30,000 of the county's 105,000 residents slept outside Monday night.
Wang said there has been no information from the townships of Yingxiu, Wolong and Xuankou at the epicenter of the quake. The three have a total population of more than 24,000.
Fifteen missing British tourists were believed in that area at the time of the quake and were ``out of reach,'' Xinhua reported.
They were likely visiting the Wolong Nature Reserve, home to more than 100 giant pandas, whose fate also was not known, Xinhua said. Xinhua reported that 60 pandas at another breeding center in Chengdu were safe.
Disasters pose a test to China's communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth and providing relief in emergencies.
Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, as the government was already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Beijing Olympics this August.
Expressions of sympathy and offers of help poured in from the United States, Japan and the European Union, among others.
``I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy,'' U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said no aid requests had been made by China.
The quake was China's deadliest since 1976, when 240,000 people were killed in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing in 1976.
The latest quake hit a fault where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands _ near communities that held sometimes violent protests against Chinese rule in mid-March. '
