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China earthquake kills hundreds in Qinghai

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im sorry for the loss. and i pray their families get strength to sail through this difficult time
 
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China’s Hu Cuts Short Brazil Visit After Qinghai Earthquake

By Bloomberg News

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao cut short a visit to Latin America after 930 people were reported dead or missing in yesterday’s earthquake in a remote western part of the country.

About 100,000 people have been displaced since the 6.9- magnitude quake flattened the town of Jiegu in Qinghai province, Zou Ming, director of disaster relief for the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said today in Beijing. Fifteen thousand homes were destroyed, 617 people are dead and 313 are missing, he said.

The deaths of 66 students and 10 teachers in school collapses echoed the nation’s last major temblor in 2008.

Hu decided to return home to take charge of the crisis, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters in Brasilia. Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in the region today, China Radio International reported.

Rescue efforts are being hampered by the town’s remote location about 800 kilometers (497 miles) from the provincial capital of Xining. More than 85 percent of the homes were destroyed in Jiegu, part of an ethnic Tibetan region more than 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) above sea level.

“Because of the high altitude many members of the rescue team as well as sniffer dogs are suffering from altitude sickness,” Miao Chonggang, deputy director of the China Earthquake Administration, said at the same Beijing briefing. “This kind of long distance rescue operation is a major difficulty.”

‘Enough’ Relief Workers

In Beijing, Zou of the Civil Affairs Ministry, said sufficient supplies would arrive within two days. There are some 10,000 rescue and medical personnel in the area, which is “enough,” he said at a press briefing.

Among the dead are children and teachers who were crushed in demolished schools, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The collapse of classrooms in neighboring Sichuan province during a May 2008 earthquake that killed about 90,000 people sparked protests from grieving parents and accusations that corrupt officials ignored sub-standard construction practices.

Only 10 percent of houses at the quake site were made from cement, Miao said, adding that the predominantly mud, wood and brick buildings were almost all flattened.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs is sending 5,000 tents, 50,000 cotton coats and 50,000 quilts to the region, Xinhua reported.

Airstrip Reopens

Hundreds of rescuers headed to the site after a damaged airstrip reopened late yesterday, said a spokesman for the Qinghai government’s news department who would only give his surname, Zhang. A single road leading to the area is too narrow for large vehicles, he said.

China Central Television showed residents digging through rubble with their hands. Others struggled through fire and smoke to reach people trapped under a collapsed hotel. Temperatures were forecast to drop as low as minus 3 degrees Celsius (26.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Electricity to the area has been cut, roads damaged and telecommunications disrupted. A reservoir cracked, and workers are trying to prevent flooding, Xinhua said.

The Red Cross is helping the government with search and rescue and has provided thousands of relief tents, said Paul Conneally, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva. Taiwan, which has been governed separately from mainland China since 1949, is sending a 23-person team to the area, Xinhua reported.

Rescue Efforts

Efforts “by every means” should be made to rescue those trapped, Hu, who was at a summit meeting this week in Washington, and Wen said in a statement posted on the central government’s Web site.

Authorities have dispatched several thousand rescue workers, police, firefighters, soldiers and medical workers to the area, and Vice Premier Hui Liangyu flew in to oversee relief efforts. China Mobile Ltd., China Telecom Corp. and China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. are working to restore phone connections, Xinhua reported.

President Barack Obama’s administration released a statement expressing condolences to the families of victims and offering help.

At least one-third of the buildings at the Yushu Vocational School collapsed, including a girls’ dormitory and a multimedia center, Xinhua reported. Dozens of parents waited there for news about dozens of people believed to be trapped in the rubble.

Many of the buildings in the region, which has a significant ethnic-Tibetan population, are made of wood and mud, Xinhua said.

Ethic Tibetans and Uighurs, in neighboring Xinjiang province, complain that they are discriminated against by the majority Han Chinese and haven’t benefited from the country’s economic growth. Deadly clashes broke out in both regions in the past few years, undermining the central government’s main stated aim of ensuring social stability.

Qinghai has a population of 5.57 million, making it among China’s smallest provinces. Its economy is only larger than Tibet’s and in land mass, the 721,000-square-kilometer province is bigger than Texas. Qinghai was used as a nuclear weapons testing site.

--Michael Forsythe. Editors: John Brinsley, Julian Nundy

China?s Hu Cuts Short Brazil Visit After Qinghai Earthquake - Bloomberg.com

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Funny and heartless western reporters never forget to add a touch of negative tones to their writings about China, even for such a grave, politically irrelevant, calamity... :tdown:
 
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< Qinghai was used as a nuclear weapons testing site. >

This is ******* BS!!!!! Ignorant writer or journalist!!!!
 
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Donations, supplies flood into quake-hit NW China region
English.news.cn 2010-04-16 02:53:43 FeedbackPrintRSS

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Rescuers search for survivors at a collapsed building in Gyegu Town of Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu, northwest China's Qinghai Province, April 15, 2010. Thousands of rescuers fought altitude sickness, chilly weather, strong winds and frequent aftershocks Thursday to dig through rubble and reach survivors of a strong earthquake that has left 760 dead in northwest China. (Xinhua/Wu Guangyu)

BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese across the country, still haunted by the deadly 8.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, are doing what they can to help the quake-hit northwestern province of Qinghai.

Qinghai's Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu was jolted by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake Wednesday morning, which has left 760 people dead.

The Beijing's municipal government, the city's Party committee, and the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau have donated ten million yuan (about 1.47 million U.S. dollars) to Yushu, while the provincial governments of Liaoning and Fujian each gave five million, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a report on its website.

An additional 3.5 million yuan was donated by Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Gansu and Hebei Provinces.

Beijing has allocated 10,000 tents, 20,000 folded beds, and 100,000 cotton quilts for the quake-hit region, with Jiangxi Province adding in another 10,000 quilts.

Meanwhile, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China raised three million yuan for quake relief, while its affiliated China Youth Development Foundation sent an emergency team with medicine, food, and other relief supplies worth one million yuan to the quake-hit zones.

The State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and the All-China Women's Federation each donated 1 million yuan to Yushu.

The MOC also ordered to ensure supply of instant noodles, drinking water, ham sausages, boxed milk, among other foods, and emergency lamps, tents, cold-proof clothes, generators and lifting jacks.

The Bank of China has donated 5.5 million yuan to Yushu and opened "Green Channels" to facilitate donation remittance service.

The Supreme People's Court donated 500,000 yuan to Yushu and pledged to help local court staff to recover damaged property.

The China Charity Federation called on the public to donate and to help the victims in earthquake. The federation donated 1 million yuan to the Qinghai Charity Foundation to save the injured, relocate affected people and assist their life.
 
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and these quake are all in poorly developed areas too..... makes it hard for rescuers
 
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PLA and APF send 6,300-plus troops to do quake relief in Qinghai

(Source: PLA Daily) 2010-04-15
PLA and APF send 6,300-plus troops to do quake relief in Qinghai

Rescuers carried by three IL-76 transporters of the PLA Air Force arrive in the earthquake-hit Yushu of northwest China&#8217;s Qinghai Province and immediately plunge into quake relief operation. (Photo by Liu Yinghua)

&#12288;&#12288;The People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Police Force (APF) unswervingly implemented the important directives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Central Military Commission (CMC) and President Hu Jintao and immediately plunged into the earthquake relief operation in Yushu Prefecture of northwest China&#8217;s Qinghai Province. Currently, a total of 6,390 PLA and APF troops have been put into the quake relief actions.

&#12288;&#12288;After the occurrence of the earthquake reaching 7.1 on the Richter scale in Yushu County of Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, the General Staff Headquarters (GSH) and the General Political Department (GPD) of the PLA wasted no time to make a deployment of the military participation in earthquake relief. 105 servicemen from the PLA Yushu Military Sub-Command and 700 servicemen from the Armed Police Qinghai Contingent were the first relief forces to rush to the epicenter.

&#12288;&#12288;At 16:05 on April 14, carrying 9 sniffer dogs and two rescue vehicles, the national emergency rescue team consisting of 60 servicemen of an engineer regiment of a group army under the Beijing Military Area Command (MAC), 30 medical workers from the General Hospital of the Armed Police Force and experts of the China Earthquake Administration (CEA), two IL-76 transporters took off and flew to the quake-hit area.

&#12288;&#12288;The PLA Air Force also sent one IL-76 transporter to send 100 rescue personnel from the State Administration of Safety Work Supervision and disaster relief facilities to Yushu. At 19:56 on April 14, all the 3 IL-76 transporters arrived in Yushu, and the rescuers started earthquake relief operation immediately.

&#12288;&#12288;The PLA Navy also sent one aircraft to fly from Mianyang of Sichuan Province to Yushu of Qinghai Province to cooperate with experts from the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications under the Chinese Academy of Sciences to monitor disaster situations.

&#12288;&#12288;Currently, the troops have rescued 1,045 persons from the rubbles and dug out 107 remains of quake victims. The military medical workers have given treatment to 2,038 wounded people.

&#12288;&#12288; At wee hours of April 15, a rescue team composed of 300 servicemen from a reserve engineer regiment and a reserve anti-chemical regiment was scheduled to arrive at the quake area and 180 servicemen from a base of the Second Artillery Force (SAF) of the PLA were supposed to arrive at the disaster-hit area at 08:00 of April 15.

&#12288;&#12288;At 10:00 this morning, 30 medical workers from the General Hospital of the Lanzhou MAC flew to the disaster-hit area by taking a civil passenger plane.

&#12288;&#12288;75 medical workers from the No. 22 Hospital of the Qinghai-Tibet Military Service Station Department of the General Logistics Department (GLD) and a 170-member earthquake emergency rescue team of Gansu Province with the soldiers from the Armed Police Gansu Contingent as the main force is scheduled to arrive at 17:00 and 150 servicemen from a battalion of the Ganzi Military Sub-Command in Sichuan Province are expected to appear at the quake-hit area at 18:00.

&#12288;&#12288;According to a responsible officer of the Office of the PLA Leading Group for Handling Emergencies, the State Council General Headquarters for Earthquake Rescue and Relief has 8 subordinated working groups with the Lanzhou MAC, the APF and the Operation Department of the GSH in the disaster rescue group and the GLD in the sanitation and epidemic prevention group.

&#12288;&#12288;By Dong Qiang
 
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Death toll rises to 1,144 in China quake
English.news.cn 2010-04-16 23:47:12 FeedbackPrintRSS

Special Report: Qinghai Earthquake
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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (R) visits a Tibetan woman in Yushu, northwest China's Qinghai Province, April 15, 2010. Wen arrived here on Thursday to inspect the disaster relief work and visit quake-affected local people. (Xinhua/Fan Rujun)

YUSHU, Qinghai, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The death toll had climbed to 1,144 and another 417 remained missing as of 5 p.m. Friday, about two and a half days after a devastating earthquake shook a Tibetan area in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which shook the Yushu County in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu at 7:49 a.m. Wednesday, has left 11,744 people injured, including 1,192 serious cases, Xia Xueping, spokesman with the emergency rescue headquarters, told a press briefing late Friday.

Xia said the death toll rose markedly Friday because the expanding rescue forces recovered more bodies from the debris with the help of large rescue equipment.

In addition, the missing list climbed as the transient population in the business town were counted for the first time, he said.

A total of 1,179 serious cases had been transported by air and road to hospitals in Golmud and the provincial capital Xining in Qinghai and several other capitals in neighboring provinces.

Many people are still buried under the debris of collapsed houses in the hardest-hit Gyegu Town near the epicenter, the seat of the Yushu prefecture government and home to 100,000 people. It sits at about 4,000 meters above sea level.

More than 85 percent of houses in Gyegu, mostly made of mudbrick and wood, had collapsed.

Thousands of rescuers are fighting altitude sickness and chilly weather to race the time to reach the trapped by Saturday morning, the end of internationally accepted "72-hour golden chance" for the trapped to still survive.


Chinese send more than 1 bln yuan to drought-stricken areas

English.news.cn 2010-04-16 19:40:18 FeedbackPrintRSS

BEIJING, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Five provinces and autonomous regions hit by prolonged drought since autumn last year had received cash donations of more than 1.1 billion yuan (163 million U.S. dollars) as of April 9, said a statement issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday.

Relief materials, including drinking water, medicine and food, worth about 76 million yuan (11 million U.S. dollars), were also sent to the drought-affected Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Chongqing, the statement said.

The donations were collected by governments at all levels, as well as Red Cross organizations and charity groups, the statement said.

As of April 9, the drought had affected 25.39 million people and 18.08 million livestock, as well as 122 million mu (8.13 million hectares) of arable land.
 
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