China Earthquake

[Anoushik]

China earthquake: Race to plug dam as death toll rises to 15,000

 

The official Xinhua news agency said that 2,000 troops had been sent to work on the Zipingku Dam, just north of the provincial capital of Chengdu.

 

The new criss comes as rescue workers are struggling to reach nearly 60,000 people who remain missing near the epicentre of the Sichuan earthquake, prompting fears that the death toll will continue to soar.

 

This morning officials speaking from the epicentre of Monday's 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province said that entire towns in the area had been 'razed to the ground' and left without a single house standing.

 

Xinhua, the state's official news agency, reported this morning that 178 children from one school in northern Sichuan province had been found dead, buried under the rubble while they were napping, adding to the official death toll of nearly 15,000.

 

A British embassy rapid reaction team this morning flew into Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, to help co-ordinate the search for Britons who went missing after the disaster.

 

The British ambassador to China, Sir William Ehrman, also arrived in Chengdu this morning to help trace 19 members of a tour party that was in a coach travelling to the Wolong panda reserve when the earthquake struck on Monday.

 

Today China poured 50,000 troops into Sichuan in an attempt to find any remaining survivors of the earthquake among the mud, rubble and tangled buildings.

 

But they had to battle to get through landslides which had cut off Wenchuan county, and poor weather conditions continued to hamper aid efforts.

 

Just under 19,000 people are believed to have been buried under debris in Mianyang - one of the cities worst affected.

 

One steam turbine factory just outside was almost wiped out by the quake, and 500 workers and their family members were missing, local media reported.

 

Amid the grief, however, there was cause for hope of finding more survivors today in the levelled villages that lie under the White Cloud Mountain.

 

Behind these mountains lie the epicentre of the Sichuan earthquake, where reports from the first rescuers speak of tens of thousands of missing and dead.

 

In Wudu village, some 20 miles from the epicentre, most of the brick and tile houses have collapsed. The worst building affected was the school, where 130 children have been brought out dead, and another 150 are buried beneath the rubble.

 

But all morning rescuers had heard the weak voice of a 12-year-old boy crying out from beneath. His leg was trapped under a concrete stanchion, but two more were balanced against each other to protect him in a triangle of space.

 

A nurse from the village clinic managed to attach an intravenous drip to his arm before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

 

First a crane and then, more gently, workers from the local volunteer rescue team lifted away chunks of concrete. Finally, there were calls for the doctor, then, a few minutes later, shouts and applause.

 

When they brought him down on a stretcher, he looked weak, but he was still breathing. Locals said his name was Li Ke as he was rushed away to an ambulance.

 

Yang Jie, head of the volunteer team, put together four years ago to deal with exactly this sort of emergency, warned it was too soon to say if he would survive.

 

“We brought out one or two yesterday who were still alive but died later,” she said. “This boy’s pulse was weak.”

 

The primary school was just starting afternoon lessons when the building shook. “I didn’t know what was happening, I just ran,” said Li Tingting, 12. “Then a teacher pulled me clear. I am one of three or four in my class who survived.”

 

Relatives came to dig out the rubble themselves while they waited for the army to arrive. Zhang Wanling, 56, rescued his two-year-old granddaughter from the kindergarten, a separate building still standing, though at a crazy angle.

 

In any case, there is little other consolation for the villages of this region immediately to the east of Wenchuan, the epicentre.

 

Whole streets of houses and shops have collapsed. Elsewhere in Wudu, outside the primary school, scores of people are said to have died, including most of the village officials. Forty are still buried.

 

Further into the mountains, the village of Baiguo lost 60 people, including 18 from its small school of 40 children. Two remain underneath, but the army have given up the search, and moved on to other parts of the disaster.

 

Village after village has a similar story. In all, this county is known to have lost more than 2,000 dead, a conservative estimate. In neighbouring Wenchuan, rescuers say 60,000 people are unaccounted for, while in Beichuan to the north there are also thousands missing.

 

Meanwhile, all along the roads, local people are pouring into the towns in the search of shelter and food. “Water is now the most important thing,” said Gao Kaiying, a Baiguo kindergarten teacher.

 

 

Trucks were beginning to travel up the main roads carrying boxes of noodles and biscuits, only to be stormed by desperate crowds. “They had better set up a distribution system, or we will be stealing what we can,” said one man.

 

 

In Mianzhu, where rescuers said the death toll had risen to 3,000, about 500 people were pulled out alive from crushed buildings.

 

A team of 1,300 soldiers and medical staff arrived on foot in Wenchuan, the county where the earthquake struck just before 2.30pm on Monday.

 

In Yingxiu, a town of 12,000 people, only 2,300 had been found alive, He Biao, the director of the prefecture's emergency office, told state television.

 

In another south-western town, 80 per cent of homes had collapsed, along with roads and bridges, and altogether in the county 60,000 people were unaccounted for, he said.

 

"They could hear people under the debris calling for help, but no one could, because there were no professional rescue teams," he said.

 

The People's Liberation Army said 50,000 troops were working in the affected region. But, though paratroops have been ordered to drop into Wenchuan, helicopter operations are being hampered by heavy rain and fog across much of the area.

 

"What we most need is medicine," Mr He said. "There is no medicine, there are no doctors and after such a long time, no food."

 

British agencies including Oxfam and Save the Children are helping with the relief effort, sending expert teams to the region. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, praised China's "exemplary" response to disaster, in comparison to the "callous" response of the Burmese authorities.

 

Even if a majority of the missing are found safe and well, the number of deaths is sure to escalate well beyond the 12,000 so far confirmed.

 

The Olympic torch relay will be scaled back to mark the disaster, organisers said.

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...-to-15,000.html

[Anoushik]

Girl will lose her legs to gain freedom

 

Chinese rescuers say only way to save trapped girl is to remove her legs

 

HANWANG, China - Chinese teenager Yang Liu lay alive but buried under the rubble of her school on Wednesday, knowing that the only way she will survive is if she loses her legs.

 

Yang has been fed, given water and a white helmet as workers remove ruins brick by brick from around her and a crane pulled away slabs of concrete — the remains of the school that parents said had around 800 students before Monday's quake hit.

 

Rescuers took a photojournalist to where Yang was trapped, before rushing his photos, along with Yang's mother, to the local hospital, where surgeons studied them in preparation.

 

She could be saved, but she would lose her legs.

 

"They are preparing to do surgery now, but the level of difficulty is very high," said one rescue worker.

 

Girl 'calm and stable'

Rescuers had deemed it too dangerous to move the concrete to free her legs.

 

"They decided that they can't move any of the rubble from on top of her, because it might bring more down on her," said Wang Jue, a Chinese journalist.

 

"So to save her life, they'll cut off her legs. She's calm and stable," he said.

 

Parents crowding outside the gate of the Dongqi Middle School were desperate for news of their own children, hoping they too might still be found alive.

 

Rumors rippled through the crowd that the voices of as many as four or five could be heard calling out from below the rubble of the four-story school.

 

But the news was more bad than good, as rescuers pulled out the body of another boy, still gripping a pen.

 

Wailing relatives

The neighborhood was nearly deserted, but for a crowd of 100 or more relatives gathered at the school's entrances, many of them crying and wailing, and all of them exhausted.

 

Across the way, Gao Weihua stood in front of the wreckage of her home, as a team of about 30 rescuers approached on foot, carrying shovels, saws and other tools.

 

One yelled, "Are there people in these buildings?" and Gao cried out, "Yes, my mother." She could still hear the voice of the 70-year-old woman inside.

 

Nearby the school, the leader of a rescue crew preparing to dig into yet another ruined building gave his team a pep talk.

 

"In my whole life, I've never done anything like this, I've never seen anything like this, but we must be soldiers now," said the leader, Yang Xin.

 

"We must fully do our duties," he said. "You are my flesh and blood, and the people buried in here are our flesh and blood."

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24613827

[Anoushik]

It's such a nightmare. My thoughts are with them.

[Em]

California is overdue for an earthquake. It is a 99% percent definite probability that we will experience an earthquake of strong magnitude in the next 30 yearrs.

 

They said that the magnite 7.9 which hit China is 20 times stronger than what we experienced in Northridge. While our infrastrucutres, buildings are mostly up to code, we can still expect deaths in the thousands should we experience such a strong earthquake.

 

 

 

 

 

[Em]

My prayers and thoughts go out to them as well. It's just so hopeless. Some people lost their sole child. I don't even imagine what they are living through.

[Anoushik]

Oh yes, definitely, if a strong earthquake hit California then just the people on the freeways and freeway bridges would be enough to contribute to the death toll.

 

I remember from last year's news that researches have found a huge fault under downtown Los Angeles. It goes right through USC.