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."
No just the Prince of Kuwait & Saudi royalty. But it was many years ago. They were very nice to be honest & tipped my staff very well.
You see smiling Tibetans. Who fear you. Who see you take their jobs. Who see you take their land. Who see your soldiers kill their monks and beat their nuns. They smile at you so you won’t tell the police that they are bad.
人在西藏是非常不快樂的。 我希望送理查Gere居住那裡，但是他不似乎想要去，否则中國政府可能不會允许它。 如果理查Gere可能居住那裡然後他在枪管可能投入花中國戰士和恰好要求他們回家。I lol'ed.
No just the Prince of Kuwait & Saudi royalty. But it was many years ago. They were very nice to be honest & tipped my staff very well.Right. If it makes you feel any better, a bunch of Chinese officials gambled away X millions of Chinese government money in Casino a while back. They got some body modification in the back of their heads and donated some organs when they got home.
Hmmmm.... when I fed what I just wrote back into Babelfish it comes out pretty strange.... ah, well, I just wanted Richard Gere to go and put flowers in the gun barrels of Chinese soldiers, since that's what our leftists like to do.....Google translate is much better. If google translate and my knowledge of Chinese characters is anything to go by you made your point. Hence my laughter :)
If you must come here you need to speak English! Of course I have not seen China. I would fear for my life if I went there! I do not eat dog privates & I don’t want bird flu. What would I eat if I went there? I would be scared to drink the water or eat! I do watch video’s of China & some of it is very nice & pretty. But you need to let the people of Tibet be free! How would you like to be in their place?
Have you told this person that the translations are pretty rough and don’t express her thoughts very well? And the same must be true when she translates our words back?
我不知道你们是从什么渠道,听到这样的消息,但是,中国人和中国政府都不歧视人的! 西藏所谓的自由,要看是什么自由,为什么大家这么重视呢? 在西藏落后的时候,没有人说过这句话,每个国家在强大的同时,都会接受这样的考验,在奥运年,发生这样种种的问题,很多人都知道原因的, 但是,我只是想告诉大家,无论什么样的恶意损毁,都不会改变历史的. 今天的中国已经不在是以前的中国,经历种种事情后,变得强大与勇敢,我是一个女生,今年刚21岁不到,我从来没有和谁谈过政治,因为我相信,公道自在人心,但是看见这个网站的恶意攻击,我实在是克制不住自己,要来这里发表一下自己的意见!您沒有回答我的問題。如果您寫道： “我恨中國政府” ！在一個電子佈告欄會發生什麼事給你呢？我不看電視。我有維吾爾人的朋友和他們是有相當的誠實什麼他們認為的中國政府。他們喜歡中國人民，雖然。什麼學校和縣，你呢？什麼是你學習？你們是怎麼找到這個網站？
i think ,you are bias to china,
so ,you are not hear every abou chinese good ,
Have you told this person that the translations are pretty rough and don’t express her thoughts very well? And the same must be true when she translates our words back?I told her in Chinese, Japanese and English lol... speaking to her in Chinese though I'm almost positive she/he/it is a rent a mob ette.
No it doesn't make me feel better. I wish they would stop with the poison stuff & free Tibet. I don't like to hear about people dying but they must have been dumb to have done it in the first place. I don't like the fact they sell prisoner's organs either come to think of it. Life doesn't seem to matter too much to them hmmm?They won't stop until their economy develops or our government actually becomes anything other than a plutocracy(and actually inspects their stuff). Too much money is being made in too many places. Tibet will *never* be free until the Chinese government collapses.
No. I am biased to Tibet and I hear what Tibetans say about China. They lie to you because they fear you. They don’t fear me and tell me the truth.
actually!
if let me choice ,i don;t want go to your;s copuntry./
beacause ,i see evilly in you body ,
i think ,if you havn;t choice ,
and if you only choice in china,
i beleive you are live in china ,
don’t die in here !
right>
you are think you’s country is clean and healthy.
but i know fat and AIDS in you;s country!
lastly ,i tell you ,my desire is go to spanish!!!!
See TE Sassy is 100% correct in her boycott. Smart daughter I have & smart niece you have!!!! I will let her read this thread before school....
I see. Most of the new Chinese FReepers came only to thank us for caring about their tragedy. This one does seem to want to push the politics in spite of her claim not to. Yes, I translated one of her Chinese posts and saw that. I didn’t know Google had a translator either. : )
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