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.
I should be the one say sorry for misunderstanding.
Thank you for your correction.
I saw some dogs were used by fireman or rescue personnel in TV. Is that different? Or is that dog, canine, especially useful for earthquake?
I am reporting the latest progress for the quake rescue.
The rain stopped in the quake area this morning. It was raining heavely in the disaster area form May 12 to May 13. Our helicopters have reached epicenter(WenChuan) May 14 morning,they taken hundreds of tons food and medicine to the epicenter .The helicopters have taken back more than 1000 hurt people to the Chendu hosptial. Becuase all of the roads to epicenter were blocked, the epicenter(WenChua county) is located in a big valley, so we are reinforcing many helicopters. Goverment has assembled more than 100,000 solders in the quake area up to now. The first professional resuce troop has reached the epicenter ,they reported Wenchuan damage is a little better than our imaging.
Especially, an USA civilian rescue team reached desaster area, Our Premier (WenJiabao) met them conincident.Premier express much sincerely appreciation. We are really appreciate you American.
Evidently China has made simply incredible strides forward in technology and social skills — that is civil skills — since that era.
How bad was the rain? I couldn’t imagine a much worse fate than drowning after being trapped in earthquake rubble.
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1980s......that's really long ago——the year I was born.I even do not remember you.
What you met with is not strange at that time,especially when you were involved in politics.And the same things are done by usa gov.,too,am i right?
From your logic I know you really miss The Cold War.Nuclear?hah,even children here know it's only a threat in Hollywood movie.None country would risk the destruction of earth to really use it in these days.
yes,many chinese hate america gov.,it's a historical result.But that doesn't mean we are aggressive man.And yes,we'll fight ,but not by war and not your country.We are all fighting to make money and earn us a better life by doing business and construction.Only idiots will seek war,are you?
I have seen a program in national geography about earthquake rescue in Pakistan. British rescue team has an equipment that could find people in debris by detecting carbon dioxide from people’s breath. (I didn’t how this equipment could separate carbon dioxide we breathe from those in air)
If that equipment could work in Sichuan, it would supply huge help in researching people from debris especially 3 or 4 days after disaster. At that time, we need method or equipment to locate people in deep buried.
we really know your “modern aircraft, vehicles, supplies and food stuffs”, for in this information age, we have a lot of ways to be informed. It's the fact that the traffic condition is extremely bad in that area...A well-known poem written by Li Bai (a famous poet who grew up in Sichuan in Tang Dynasty), “Shu Dao Nan”(Shu refers to Sichuan, Dao means road, and Nan means hard) describes that vividly. (I found a translation and post part of it here, since it is very long)
HARD ROADS IN SHU
Li Bai
Oh, but it is high and very dangerous!
Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky.
...Until two rulers of this region
Pushed their way through in the misty ages,
Forty-eight thousand years had passed
With nobody arriving across the Qin border.
And the Great White Mountain, westward, still has only a bird's path
Up to the summit of Emei Peak —
Which was broken once by an earthquake and there were brave men lost,
Just finishing the stone rungs of their ladder toward heaven.
Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky.
Even to hear of it turns the cheek pale,
With the highest crag barely a foot below heaven.
“What, Americans don’t hate us? They aren’t devils?”
That is encouraging....Keep after it....
Stlnative, I posted to you on the other thread but you haven’t responded.
Wondering why you pinged everyone on that thread and told them to come over here. Especially when so many were on it and were familiar with how to find it.
It’s cool if you want to start your own thread, but I don’t understand why you would ping everyone on that thread and tell them that’s the old thread and this is the new one. That’s very odd.
Adcycn,
With all that I said before, I want you to understand something. I met many people when I stayed in Chengdu. Most were very nice people, but many were nothing more than nice spies. They wanted anything and everything they could get from me and my team.
I feel very bad and sorry for China and the dead and dying, those trapped and the families of those affected. There is little I can do from here, but I will say that, although 99.9% of your country does NOT follow religion or believe in God, I do and will continue to pray for your people there.
Since you’re on the internet, I take it you were not affected directly, and your power and communications connections are still online.
Perhaps YOU should be out there helping your fellow people in China, instead of sitting here accusing Americans of hatred when that isn’t the case.
Good luck with your country’s plight and I’m SURE the US will, against all odds come forward with literally BILLIONS of dollars in aid monies to your country, even against MY wishes. I think our money would be better spent helping those trapped in Burma, and the Taiwanese people instead. But that’s just me.
Prayers for the Chinese during this difficult time!
I am very happy that the rain has stopped. The people must be chilled from being wet. The sun will provide warmth. I am watching the rescue on TV and am impressed by the efforts of all that I see.
bookmark
Lao Wai(the Chinese characters are 老外) doesn’t mean “big nose”, “lao” is something like prefix, like “lao ma”(mum), “lao ba” (dad), and “wai“ means “foreign”，so “lao wai” means “foreigner” in spoken Chinese. “Wai Guo”(外国) means foreign country. (”Guo” means country)
AMEN AMEN!
THANKS FOR YOUR EXCELLENT POST.
I PRAY THAT ALL PREPARE
ESPECIALLY IN HAZARD ZONES BUT REALLY—EVERYWHERE . . . WAR REACHES EVERYWHERE.
so will some quakes eventually.
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