Posted on 05/14/2008 4:29:09 PM PDT by blam
China earthquake: Exodus begins from Sichuan
By Richard Spencer in Hanwang Town, Sichuan Province
Last Updated: 11:05PM BST 14/05/2008
Tens of thousands of people have poured down from the mountainsides of Sichuan searching for food and water as rescuers evacuated towns where more than 40,000 people are dead, buried or missing. Rescue teams are digging through rubble, trying to reach survivors of a powerful earthquake in China.
Helicopters began to airlift residents out of the villages of Wenchuan county at the epicentre of the earthquake which struck China on Monday, while others walked for hours into the valleys and plains to the south and east. The county is still cut off from land-based relief by landslides.
But the exodus might yet be heading into more danger, with emergency workers attempting to plug gaps in two major dams.
The Zipingpu dam, above the city of Dujiangyan with its population of 600,000, was said at one stage to be in an "extremely dangerous state" with cracks more than four inches wide appearing in its face, though the water resources ministry later said on its website that it was stable for the time being.
Tulong dam, further north on the Min river, was said by officials to be near collapse, something which would have a knock-on effect on a series of dams and power stations further downstream.
Almost 400 dams altogether were said to have been affected by Monday's earthquake – the wet and mountainous province is criss-crossed by some of China's biggest and fastest-flowing rivers.
While some dams, like Zipingpu, are modern, others were built when construction standards were lower.
All day long, the 100,000 troops now assigned to the rescue effort grappled with the wreckage of major cities, towns and villages across a wide area.
There were some successes, including the rescue of a three-year-old girl in Beichuan, one of the worst-affected towns, and an eight-months pregnant woman trapped under an apartment block in Dujiangyan.
But by the evening the official death toll stood at nearly 15,000, with another 25,000 reported buried and more unaccounted for.
In Wenchuan, a paramilitary officer told local television that a third of houses had been destroyed and 90 per cent damaged.
Meanwhile, the survivors were starting to look ever more desperately for supplies, walking for hours out of their mountain villages to seek help.
"There is nothing left of my village," said Fu Yuanming, who had walked for 10 hours from Village Number 3 of Qingping district near the epicentre to Hanwang town. "We need help. Our people have nothing to eat, they have nothing to drink."
He said a landslide had blocked the river above the village, turning into a reservoir that was about to burst.
Along all the roads in the region, makeshift camps have been set up. Residents of the towns lined up patiently as fire engines served out buckets of water; in the villages, locals ran out into the road to forcibly stop trucks and beg for supplies of noodles and biscuits.
"Someone had better set up relief coordination, or the people will resort to robbery," said one man in the village of Wudu.
More than 10,000 people were crowded into the sports stadium in the city of Mianyang, Sichuan's second biggest city and an important base for China's high-tec industry. Many had walked from Beichuan.
Ralph Johnson, a British teacher who lives in the city and runs a pub there, said that almost a million people were now spending their days on the streets. That included the city's 800,000 population, many of whom were like him unable to return to their damaged flats, and thousands more refugees.
He was also waiting to hear news of the mountain primary school for which his regulars have raised funds, and which feeds a secondary school known to have collapsed with up to 1,000 dead.
"We have not heard anything from the school," he said.
A British embassy rapid response unit began work in the provincial capital Chengdu to help coordinate the search for tourists trapped in the region. Nineteen members of a Kuoni tour party that were on their way to the Wolong giant panda reserve near Wenchuan when the earthquake hit were still unaccounted for last night.
There were unconfirmed reports that a group of 50 tourists had been located at the reserve, and 12 Americans who had been missing spoke to Worldwide Fund for Nature officials by satellite phone.
But Sir William Ehrman, the British ambassador, told The Daily Telegraph that there had still been no contact with the British group.
"We are extremely concerned," he said. "We are trying all we can to locate those who are unaccounted for."
heng!!!!
we are welcome goodness foreigner come to china!
don;t welcome evil & vile comr to our’s goodness country!!
just now ,have 33 foreigner people in sichuan,and go through earthquake.
we are country;s armyman rescue them!
they are say:”chinese is very good.”and hug armyman.
so when are you appraise a country ,don’t only see black place ,
i think ,every country have black and wihte place in there.
so ,you are keep rightly thought....
ok???
WE will just have to disagree then. I happen to be a female & while I am praying for the victims in China I don’t like what China does to my pets & my child. Nor how they acted with the torch. I disagree with how the people of Tibet are treated.
do you know FREE!!
now , TIBET is FREE in chinese ,,,
Not a dude ..Dude! I went through h=ll with the dog food & I am still mad. Then the poisoned toys. There may be some nice people & I feel for them but I darn well resent getting poisoned & if you don't like it too bad. Did you have to look at every toy you bought last Christmas & make sure it wasn't from China? Even children are smart enough to look at labels now & boycott China. I feel bad there are people dead & hurt but I don't have to like China. And I still say Free Tibet. It would be the fair thing to do dude.lol... dudette then. I'm not saying you have to like the people responsible. I'm just saying that the majority of Chinese people are just normal hardworking folks trying to get by. There are greedy jerks, sure, but tarring *everybody* with that brush just incites hatred IMO.
I have a bunch of Chinese friends who are *super*nationalistic. I just don't discuss politics with them. After a few beers I'm tempted, let me tell you.
WRT to Tibet, the world isn't fair. I don't like it any more than you do. However, the Dalai Llama has the best strategy of the bunch right now. It might be a better idea to help him succeed instead of angering normal Chinese folks by talking down to them.
ok
please tell me
how can you know it!web or hear or other?
you are self saw it>>>>>??
answer me!!!
It is not free of China, thats a lie. What say you about killing our pets? Can you explain that? Or poisoning toys? Explain that!Hebe doesn't actually speak any English. She's using automatic translation software. The pet stuff probably turns into gobbledigook as soon as she translates it. Try messing with google translate to get something meaningful in chinese.
okHebe, how do *you* know how Tibetans feel? Are you Han Chinese? Do you think a Tibetan would feel comfortable speaking their mind with you? After all you can go to jail for what you say.
please tell me
how can you know it!web or hear or other?
you are self saw it>>>>>??
answer me!!!
actually!!!
have 98% Tibet people love chinese ,and hope chinese lead them progress.
you are in overseas,only see alittle evil’report in web and another says.
you can’t critique everything!
beacause you are havn;t competency.
He came back as a silly chinese girl?
Ok then you ask her please because I would love to know the answer! By the way my dogs are Shih tzu. And they resented they had to eat chopped chicken livers for a long time & I almost lost a litter of pups too. So yes I am mad.
Dudette doesn't make it either. If you want to use my name fine..It is Pandora. And I worked in a casino with many Chinese who I had to deal with. Did you know they spit right on the rugs? Thats vile. They were not I suppose your friends...Please don't get me wrong there may be some very nice Chinese. However I have met very few. I also think my 8 yr old daughter is pretty smart about China more so then most adults!Sorry Pandora :) LOL... the patented Asian floor spit. I mastered that after getting a sinus infection in Tokyo(only outside). It's a cultural difference, like westerners wearing their shoes inside. That said, Chinese people really should know better when they come to the states. Especially when you represent other people's opinion of your culture.
Not to be snarky, but are Casinos really the places that you expect to meet the social cream of a country? Most of the Chinese people I know are students, company employees and they've always acted perfectly civilized(around me).
i said ,
i been to there!!!
Ok then you ask her please because I would love to know the answer! By the way my dogs are Shih tzu. And they resented they had to eat chopped chicken livers for a long time & I almost lost a litter of pups too. So yes I am mad.Sure. Just (automatically translated) a response for her. Will post it now.
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