Chinese rescuers search for survivors at a collapsed building ©AFP
Chinese rescuers remove an injured student from the rubble of a collapsed school ©AFP/Xinhua - AFP
Chinese rescuers evacuate a survivor from a collapsed building in Dujiangyan ©AFP
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.
New China Quake Thread Ping
I’m afraid the final numbers of fatalities are going to be staggering. Towns have not been reconed yet, and we’re already 20,000 plus.
I sure hate to see this kind of loss of life.
Situation at China’s quake epicenter worse than expected
2008-05-14 11:23:44
WENCHUAN, Sichuan, May 14 (Xinhua) — The situation in Yingxiu Town of Wenchuan County, the epicenter of Monday’s massive earthquake, was worse than expected with traffic cut off and children buried in debris, according to local government officials who trekked into the area.
Only 2,300 people out of the town’s population of more than 10,000 survived the quake, and more than 1,000 of the survivors were badly injured, said He Biao, deputy secretary-general of the Aba prefectural government.
He cited other officials — including three vice governors of Aba (Bai Licheng, Wu Zegang and Li Chuan) — who were in Yingxiu at present.
Survivors desperately needed medical help, food and water, the officials were quoted by He as saying.
Cries for help were heard from under the debris of a local school, but people had to dig with their hands, since blocked roads were preventing rescue teams and machinery from reaching the site.
“The situation in Yingxiu is even worse than expected,” said an official on duty in the Aba government, citing the three vice governors.
The official said the vice governors treked into Yingxiu after many hardships and several close brushes with death.
Rocks were still rolling down from the mountains on Wednesday. The highway linking Yingxiu and Dujiangyan City was totally paralyzed and a bridge on the highway had collapsed, hampering the arrival of rescuers.
He said he had managed to contact the vice governors at 7 a.m. on Wednesday but the phone went dead as they were speaking.
In a nearby town, Shuimo, with 20,000 people, roads and bridges were severely damaged and rescue teams had not arrived. Shuimo was also in need of food, medicine and water.
Hundreds of soldiers entered Wenchuan County on Tuesday and had pulled more than 1,000 people from collapsed buildings by nightfall, according to the disaster relief headquarters of the Chengdu Military Area Command.
Wang Yi, a staff officer of an armed police troop, said on Wednesday morning that disaster relief materials have arrived in Wenchuan and local residents were in a “stable” mood. Wang’s team has rescued more than 80 people since they arrived at 11 p.m. on Tuesday.
However, he said many tourists were stranded in Wenchuan, and food, water and medicine were greatly needed.
“Many towns and villages around the county seat have been leveled to the ground,” Wang added.
As of 8 a.m. on Wednesday, more than 800 armed police had arrived at Wenchuan and started rescue operations.
On Wednesday morning, two helicopters with relief supplies flew over Yingxiu Town and three more were awaiting orders at the Fenghuanshang airport, according to the Chengdu Military Command.
If weather conditions permit, the five helicopters will fly to Wenchuan County to air-drop relief supplies.
Two remote-sensing navy planes left Beijing at 7 a.m. on Wednesday to collect data in Sichuan.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/14/content_8167268.htm
In the mid-70’s, an earthquake of similar magnitude hit the same region and the death toll was close to 250,000.
These people really need our prayers.
......Bob
For those of you that have DishNetwork here in the states.
You can get live coverage from CCTV9 it is Channel 265 on DishNetwork.
Quake razed some Chinese cities ‘to the ground’
Updated May 14, 2008 17:53:44
Rescue workers who made it to Wenchuan County, the epicentre of this week’s devastating earthquake in China, say some towns have been “razed to the ground”, with not a single house left standing.
Several thousand army troops and medical workers arrived in the area late on Tuesday, after having to walk to the area, after damaged roads and bad weather made it impossible to drive or fly in.
According to the Chinese airforce, troops are now parachuting into areas where bad weather has until now made it impossible to reach.
“The losses have been severe. Some towns basically have no houses left. They have all been razed to the ground,” Wang Yi, head of an armed police unit sent into the disaster zone, was quoted as saying by Sichuan Online news site.
He did not say how many of Wenchuan’s eight main towns had suffered such a high level of damage in Monday’s 7.9 magnitude earthquake, but said they included the towns of Yingxiu, Xuankou, and Wolong.
“Mountain villages in the surrounding area have also been basically razed to the ground,” he added.
The ABC’s China correspondent Stephen McDonell has travelled to the region and says rescue workers have a hard task ahead of them.
“We’re hearing people calling out for help in large hills of rubble and they didn’t have the equipment needed to clear those hills of rubble, so it might be pretty tough for them,” he said.
“I can’t imagine just by using your bare hands, for example where I’m standing now there’s just rubble all around me, you could never move it if you wanted to, using your hands.
“You’d need heavy lifting equipment.”
Officially more than 12,000 people have been killed in the quake, but tens of thousands of people are understood to be buried in the rubble of their homes, schools and workplaces in the quake zone.
According to some reports, in the city of Mianyang there are nearly 20,000 people buried, while elsewhere in Beichuan County, photos showed only around a fifth of buildings were still standing.
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200805/s2244803.htm?tab=latest
Your mention of the 70s quake doesn't surprise me. I doubt the buildings are all that safe for higher scale earthquakes.
My heart does go out to them. I agree that we should be praying for them.
I hope the Chinese government allows relief efforts to take place without interference, unlike what's going on in Myanmar. (Burma)
It’s heartbreaking to read about things like this. The cyclone in Mayamar and there have been a number of bad things happening in the states recently.
It is a mistake to not accept help, even if it proves not to be all that helpful in the long run. To not do all one can do will lead to great anger from those who desperately need help now. Later is too late.
In addition “mobilizing 100,000 troops” doesn’t seem that large for a country the size of China. That’s only 1 out of 10,000 of the population. It isn’t enough.
We have our fair share here and yet we still focus on disaster relief without discussing our abortions. You and I agree that abortions are bad, but I think we can table that during this time. These folks need our sympathy and support right now.
There are American’s trapped in Wolong. They do have cell phone usage now. One of them called into CCTV a little while ago.
“I hope the Chinese government allows relief efforts to take place without interference, unlike what’s going on in Myanmar. “
I do not think that Myanmar is being repeated. If China is having to parachute in relief troops (workers), trying to coordinate foreign relief workers would be damn near impossible.
I do not have any knowledge of the area, but I understand it is very mountainous, and highly populated. Probably a nightmare come true.
......Bob
China may have new threat from damaged N-facilities (Nuclear)
New Delih: The aftermath of China’s devastating earthquake on Tuesday saw makeshift refugee camps mushrooming in odd places, with Mianyang being one of them.
The industrial city plays home to China’s nuclear weapons industry and turned into a refugee camp as tens of thousands of residents camped on streets for the second night in a row. Thousands more stayed in the city’s stadium.
The city’s buildings were dark and deserted as the government posted guards to keep the people out, for fear of aftershocks. Powerful aftershocks, one to the tune of magnitude 6, was felt in Sichuan’s Chengdu, one of the cities worst hit by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.
However, the refugees may not be safe even now, for the earthquake may have damaged the nuclear facilities in Mianyang.
French experts of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) told agencies on Tuesday that they could not rule out damage to the nuclear facilities in Daya Bay, Lingao, Qinshan and Tianwan, as a result of the earthquakes.
Though all nuclear reactors are located more than thousand kilmetres from the epicentre, other nuclear facilities - such as research reactors - are located in Sichuan, some even within 100 km of the epicentre.
“Given the sharp ground acceleration of 250 centimetres per second detected 70 kilometres from the epicentre, it is not possible at this stage to rule out damage to these facilities,” the institute said in a statement to agencies.
Mianyang’s surrounding areas have a reported death toll of 7,300 while 18,000 are still believe to be trapped under rubble.
More than 12,000 deaths have been reported in the Sichuan province alone.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/china-may-have-new-threat-from-damaged-nfacilities/65247-2.html
The U.S. will help and so will many other nations. I just hope the Chinese government doesn't get paranoid and put road blocks (figurative) up.
In central California where I live (about 10 miles from the coast) the required design goal for new home construction is withstanding a 7.0 earthquake without major structural failure. Anything pushing an 8.0 will likely destroy any building regardless of construction technique. At that level the ground under the structure fails. We are fortunate that our primary building material is wood. Wood frame buildings even after they completely fail provide lots of survivable space. Masonry and concrete buildings simply crush you.
World’s oldest irrigation system in China safe after quake
2008-05-14 15:23:53
BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) — The safety of the world’s oldest operating irrigation system was not compromised by Monday’s quake, though the system sustained minor damage, the Ministry of Water Resources said on Wednesday.
The quake caused cracks in the V-shaped dike of the Dujiangyan project, which is more than 2,000 years old, and there were collapses in a sluice control room and a standby power generator room, it said.
The city of Dujiangyan, near the epicenter in Wenchuan County, was one of the worst-hit regions in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
The ministry urged protection of the Zipingpu Reservoir between Dujiangyan and Wenchuan, and on the upper stream to Dujiangyan.
It said the irrigation system and Dujiangyan City “would be swamped” if major problems emerged at the dam at the reservoir.
The emergency response office of the Sichuan government said on Tuesday that cracks had appeared on the surface of the dam at Zipingpu and workshops collapsed, while all hydropower generators came to a halt.
The ministry set up a command center at Zipingpu to safely discharge the reservoir’s rising waters and guarantee that the damage posed no threat to Dujiangyan and the neighboring Chengdu Plain.
The Dujiangyan project, built in 256 BC, is more than 50 kilometers from the provincial capital of Chengdu and irrigates 666,000 hectares of land, including Chengdu.
Sichuan has other major water projects, including the south-to-north water diversion project and the Three Gorges Dam, both of which reported no impact from the quake
Actually, the 7.8 Tangshan Quake of ‘76 was not in the same area. This was central China (since the US is almost exactly the same size, think of the area Wichita, KS), and Tangshan is northeast of Beijing (think Trenton, NJ).
China’s recent modernization should keep the final tally lower than Tangshan’s count. Also, the Tangshan quake hit at 3am, and was followed by a 7.7 aftershock at 7pm that night while they were starting recovery efforts.
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