tonight there were two aftershocks pass. i keep alert all night at home, my neighbers still sleep outside.
Quake Tragedy in China Opens Door Slightly for Media, New and Old
Posted on: Wednesday, 14 May 2008, 15:00 CDT
BEIJING _ Amid a national outpouring of grief over Monday’s huge earthquake, China has relaxed its grip _ perhaps only briefly _ on the Internet and some media outlets.
Chinese witnesses to the devastation in Sichuan province have flooded Web sites with homemade videos, filled chat rooms with commentary and let text messages fly from their mobile phones.
The disaster has provided an opportunity for “citizen journalists” to disseminate tidbits of information at a furious pace rarely seen before, experts said.
China’s conventional media, initially lagging behind bloggers and users of instant messaging services, also have found greater freedoms, showing often-distressing images of quake-ruined areas without the sanitizing that censors usually demand.
~SNIP~ (All McClatchy sources must be excerpted and linked)
Girl pulled from quake rubble after 50 hours
(CNN) — A frightened schoolgirl was pulled safely from the rubble of a school dormitory Wednesday evening — 50 hours after she was buried by Monday’s earthquake, state-run media said.
In a weak voice, the trapped girl called out to one of the rescuers, “uncle, save me, save me,” the uncle said. “If anything (bad) had happened to her, the voice could haunt me for the rest of my life.”
~SNIP~ (CNN must be excerpted and linked only)
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/14/quake.thursday/?iref=mpstoryview
3000 tourists evacuated from quake area
From correspondents in Beijing | May 15, 2008
MORE than 3000 domestic and foreign tourists stranded in a scenic spot in China’s quake-hit Sichuan province have been evacuated, state media reported today.
About 6000 tourists had been stranded in Jiuzhaigou after Monday’s massive 7.9-magnitude quake, the worst to hit China for a generation, the official Xinhua news agency said today.
The remaining 2517 tourists, including 682 from overseas, will be evacuated today, Xinhua quoted the National Tourism Administration as saying.
It said that all those rescued would be taken to “safe places”.
The administration’s disaster relief office said 11 Taiwanese tourists stranded in cable cars in Lingyan Mountain in Dujiangyan had been rescued, although a 56-year-old man had died.
As of late yesterday, 19 British tourists and 12 guests from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had arranged to stay in the Wolong giant panda nature reserve and were unharmed, the report said.
Britain’s foreign ministry and a travel company had said yesterday that a group of 19 British tourists remained missing after the quake.
There was no immediate confirmation from London that the British tourists were safe and sound or that the Chinese state media report was referring to the same group.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23701593-12335,00.html
Many photos here...
Current:
http://cryptome.org/cn-quake3/cn-quake3.htm
China earthquake photos 2 (May 13 and 14, 2008): http://cryptome.org/cn-quake2/cn-quake2.htm
China earthquake photos 1 (May 12 and 13, 2008): http://cryptome.org/cn-quake/cn-quake.htm
Stranded tourists, including 50 foreigners, reported safe near China quake epicenter
2008-05-15 05:48:28
CHENGDU, May 14 (Xinhua) — Tourists and journalists, including more than 50 foreigners, stranded at a town near the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake in southwest China’s Sichuan Province were safe, a local official said on Wednesday.
No deaths or injuries have been reported from the stranded tourists and journalists who have been stranded at the panda town of Wolong in Wenchuan County, the epicenter, the official said.
“They have been arranged to stay in a local hotel,” said Zhang Wenxiang, of the Wolong Giant Panda Administration.
Telecommunications had been cut for Wolong, famous for the China Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center, since Monday.
The foreigners included 12 Americans from the World Wide Fund for Nature, Zhang said.
“Wolong and the neighboring Gengda township suffered a lot in the earthquake. Roads were destroyed by landslides and 90 percent of local houses collapsed,” he said.
“We are in great shortage of medicine,” he added.
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan Monday afternoon and it was also felt in most parts of the county.
The death toll across the country has risen to 14,866, the latest government statistics show.
Among those, 14,463 were confirmed dead in Sichuan Province, 280 in Gansu Province, 106 in Shaanxi Province, 14 in Chongqing Municipality, two in Henan Province, one in Yunnan Province and one in Hubei Province.
After the earthquake, a number of travel agencies in different provinces of China have reported that tourists had been stranded in Sichuan.
On Wednesday, a Taiwanese tourist surnamed Wang fell 50 meters from a cable car during a rescue mission and died after treatment failed, bringing the death toll of Taiwan compatriots to two in the aftermath of Monday’s Sichuan quake.
Meanwhile, 1,958 Taiwanese tourists are still awaiting for flights back to Taiwan, with 588 stranded in Jiuzhaigou, a tourist attraction in Sichuan.
Fourteen tourists with a Taiwan-based travel agency named “Auspicious Crane” are still out of reach for the time being. Taiwan local media predicted that they were probably trapped on their way from Maoxian county to Wenchuan.
The National Tourism Administration has ordered all local travel agencies to halt its planned journeys destined to or passing through quake-hit areas.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/15/content_8173313.htm