Posted on 05/14/2008 12:37:27 AM PDT by stlnative
China quake toll soars as full horror begins to emerge
14/05/2008
DUJIANGYAN (AFP) - The full horror of the devastating China earthquake began to emerge Wednesday as rescuers discovered whole towns all but wiped off the map, pushing the death toll well above 20,000.
Military and police teams punched into the heart of the disaster zone, with 100 troops parachuting into a county that was previously cut off while planes and helicopters air-dropped emergency supplies.
But the message that came back from this mountainous corner of southwestern Sichuan province was that town after town was flattened by the 7.9-magnitude quake that struck two days ago.
The death toll has soared well above 20,000, but that toll is rising by the hour as more information comes in from stricken communities.
"The losses have been severe," Wang Yi, who heads an armed police unit sent into the epicentre zone, was quoted as saying by Sichuan Online news site.
"Some towns basically have no houses left. They have all been razed to the ground."
A least 7,700 people died in the small town of Yingxiu alone, state media cited a local government official as saying, with only 2,300 surviving.
Across Sichuan, countless thousands more people are missing or buried under the rubble of shattered homes, schools and factories.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said 100,000 military personnel and police had been mobilised, indicating the epic scale of the country's worst earthquake in a generation.
The air drop started with planes and helicopters flying dozens of sorties, dropping tonnes of food and relief aid into the worst-hit zone, most of it cut off from the outside world by landslides and road closures.
The destruction around the epicentre in remote Wenchuan county is massive, with whole mountainsides sheared off, highways ripped apart and building after building levelled.
Rescue teams have been seen pulling bodies and badly injured survivors out of the ruins.
As well as Yingxiu, CCTV television said air drops were also made in nearby Mianyang -- where the death toll jumped to nearly 5,500 -- as well as Mianzhu and Pengzhou.
Helicopters also flew to Wenchuan with food, drinks, tents, communications equipment and other supplies.
The rescue effort has been badly disrupted since Monday by heavy rain, and the Meteorological Authority forecasting more later in the week, raising the risk of fresh landslides.
Amid the setbacks, the nation focused on the precious minutes going by for those who were buried under rubble but may have survived.
Cries for help were heard from a flattened school in Yingxiu, where people were forced to try and dig out survivors with their hands, state media said.
"The situation in Yingxiu is even worse than expected," one local official said.
In towns and villages across a swathe of Sichuan, heart-rending scenes were played out as grief-stricken families searched for missing loved ones.
In the city of Mianzhu, where at least 3,000 died, rescuers picked through twisted metal and concrete trying to find people whose voices could be heard under the rubble.
"My younger brother is in there," 42-year-old Li -- his eyes bloodshot from sleep deprivation -- said next to a heap that was once a bank.
The local disaster relief headquarters said rescuers had been able to pull 500 people alive out of the debris of collapsed buildings, but 20,000 in three outer villages were still out of reach.
Wednesday's leg of the Olympic torch relay in eastern Jianxi province began with a minute's silence before the runners set off.
Organisers of the Beijing Olympics said they would scale down the relay as the torch makes it way to the capital for the summer Games, a further knock to its troubled round-the-world journey after earlier protests over Tibet.
World powers including the United States, European Union and United Nations as well as the International Olympic Committee have rallied round with offers of help.
China welcomed the offers but said conditions were "not yet ripe" to allow in foreign rescue teams, citing damage to transport links.
A Japanese foreign ministry official in charge of emergency aid said Japan offered rescue teams with sniffer dogs, but China had made no request.
US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao discussed the disaster by telephone, with Washington offering half a million dollars in initial disaster aid.
Rescue workers who made it to Wenchuan County, the epicentre of this week’s devastating earthquake in China, say some towns have been “razed to the ground”, with not a single house left standing.
What were these houses made of? How were they built? Just curious...
prayers for all those who were affected.
I have been awake for less that 1 hour and I was checking the headlines first. Then I check my pings after I wake up some.
Reasons I started a new thread...
~ The old thread was getting long and was locking up.
~ When I started this new thread there were many new reports coming out in the media that were worthy of a new thread. (see all the new articles I posted after I started the new thread) - Death toll jump up to 20,000 for 12,000.
~ I don't do ping lists... I pinged you and only you on my first post in this new thread as a courtesy to you.
~ I added the link on the old thread to the new thread (and vise-versa) as a courtesy (and due to past experience) “to all” because I just knew someone would want both threads to be linked to each other. (see posts on this new thread)
~ The old thread is not locked and is still alive. There is no reason to get upset because a new thread with updated info was started.
End of reasons... If these are not good enough for you then you will just have to deal with it.
Death toll jump up to 20,000 from 12,000
You know, I can understand why you say this. I sometimes harbor the same view. I wonder if we aren’t selling the individual Chinese short though, but attributing to them the harshness of the political and military leadership.
I appreciate the comments. It’s an interesting topic.
But can it stand up to 12 feet of water?
‘The mountains are sliding down’
Tania Branigan reports from Hanwang, a temporary haven for thousands of survivors of China’s devastating earthquake.
They came down from the mountains in their scores, seeking food and shelter for themselves and help for those they had to leave behind.
Hours of scrambling over rocky terrain had brought them to the precarious safety of Hanwang.
~SNIP~ (more at link - must be excerpted and linked only)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/14/china.chinaearthquake
My exact question when they were building. As it turns out, they put the home on ten foot stilts. There were eighteen 10x10s placed in concrete five feet into the ground. I might have liked to have had it be ten feet into the ground, but what the heck. It should be very sturdy.
Would I test it? I’d be in Canada. LOL
I have FReep mailed you my schedule today as a courtesy to you.
Three mountainous towns still out of reach in China’s quake-hit area
2008-05-15 02:14:04
MIANZHU, Sichuan, May 15 (Xinhua) — Three mountainous towns in quake-hit southwest China were still out of reach due to the cutoff of traffic and communication, a local official said.
Jiang Guohua, Mianzhu City’s Communist Party chief, said about 20,000 residents were trapped in the three towns - Qingping, Jinhua and Tianchi. The number of casualties there remained unclear.
There were some mines in the three towns. It was unclear whether 400 people were trapped in a Jinhua phosphorus mine, according to Jiang.
A villager who walked out of Qingping said the town had fall short of medicine and half of its 2,000 population were injured. Food and drinking water were also badly needed.
The Mianzhu disaster relief headquarters had earlier dispatched four teams to the towns but they had to return due to bad weather and continuous aftershocks.
A team of 500 People’s Liberation Army soldiers carrying medicine and food began to walk to the towns on Wednesday afternoon.
A 7.8 magnitude quake rocked Wenchuan County of Sichuan on Monday afternoon. Mianzhu is close to Wenchuan.
The death toll from the quake in Sichuan has reached 14,463.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/15/content_8173146.htm
May 14, 2008
More than 40,000 dead or missing in Chinese earthquake
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3931767.ece
When the quake hit: new footage
China says troops rushing to plug ‘extremely dangerous’ cracks in dam
http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=134685&sc=607
To you and all our old and new FRiends from China signing up on forum: Welcome to Free Republic.
I am so heartbroken by the disaster and pray for all of you affected.
China locks up 2 for quake rumours: reports
Posted 14 minutes ago
China’s state-run media reports that two people have been detained for allegedly spreading rumours about the earthquake that hit the country’s south-west, killing more than 14,000 people.
The two people, from Chongqing province next to quake-hit Sichuan, have been ordered to be held for three days, Xinhua news agency quoted the Chongqing Public Security Bureau as saying.
Xinhua says one of them, surnamed Tang, released a picture on an internet forum purporting to show many Sichuan residents escaping the quake.
But police found Tang’s picture was actually of a crowd celebrating an event linked to the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan.
The other, surnamed Jin, is said to have posted a picture of a department store building on an online forum and claimed its roof had collapsed. Police discovered the collapse never occurred.
Earlier this week, the Chinese government warned that anyone found spreading false rumours about the quake would be punished.
- AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/15/2245068.htm?section=world
ruh roh!
China censorship cracking down as always.
We will probably see less Chinese posters now. :-(
What a shame. It was interesting to have them here for a short while communicating with us although most of us knew it would not last.
There is no “old” and “new” thread. There’s the thread I started, this thread, and many others.
I have been nothing but courteous to you. By your rude response and your sarcastic e-mail I can tell you’re a jerk. And a disengenuous one.
Being the “courteous” person that you are you’d better get busy and get on all of the other quake threads and tell every one on there in huge font that you have the “new” thread and that they’re on the “old” one, so everyone can “find” your thread.
You haven’t done anyone any courtesies, but you have managed to confuse the new posters on here. Nice going.
The clock is ticking.
There is no time to take your time.
China has a population of more than a billion people. A 100,000 people is 1 of 10,000 of that total population. China has an army of more than 2 million. 100,000 soldiers is only 5% of its army. China’s army is nearly entirely at home unlike the United States army that is spread all over the world.
They need to have a mass air lift of supplies and manpower, not one or the other.
tonight there were two aftershocks pass. i keep alert all night at home, my neighbers still sleep outside.
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