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JISHOU, HUNAN — Today was a day of mourning for the 2,039 victims of last Wednesday’s earthquake in the western province of Qinghai.
Flags were lowered to half mast, prayers were offered in local ceremonies nationwide, game websites suspended play, and the media broadcast news reports and benefit concerts throughout the day.
The 7.1-magnitude hit the rural county of Yushu in Qinghai just after dawn. Most residents were still at home, and students in boarding schools still in their dorms at the time. Most of the homes and buildings were leveled.
Because of Yushu’s remoteness — 12 hours’ drive from the nearest airport — it took rescuers more than a day to arrive. By that time, survivors had already endured two nights in sub-freezing weather on the Himalayan plateau.
About 175 people are still missing, and about 12,000 are injured.
Most of the residents there are ethnic Tibetans, who have an uneasy relationship with the Chinese government. Beijing has responded to the disaster as quickly as it did to the more extensive 2008 earthquake in Sichuan; both the president and vice-president have visited Qinghai in the last week.
Qinghai is the birthplace of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and political leader-in-exile. He has appealed to Beijing to let him visit Qinghai, but so far his requests have been ignored.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Here is an update to the earthquake situation in western China.
The death toll has climbed to 617, including at least 56 school children who were at school when the early morning quake hit. Perhaps 9,000 people or more are injured, some seriously. About 85 percent of the buildings have been flattened.
Twenty miles from the epicenter, Jiegu township in Qinghai Province is in a remote, mountainous region, altitude 13,000 feet. With no shelter, most survivors had to sleep outside in below-freezing temperatures last night with little more than blankets for protection.
The nearest airport, in Xining, is 12 hours away on rugged, winding roads. Chinese troops are already on the way with heavy lifting equipment and supplies.
Most of the homes in Jiegu are built from mud and wood, but schools are typically made from concrete block. Media reports say that 70 percent of the schools have collapsed. Students were already in school, since many are boarders.
The big quake was preceded by a smaller one at 5:39 am, which woke up teachers and students at one school in time to escape before the big one destroyed their school.
There are 700 troops on the ground now. Another 5,000 are on the way. Additionally, about 500 monks from Sichuan have come with bottled water, instant noodles and dried food. The government is warning private citizens to stay away, because of the region’s high altitude and bitterly cold temperatures.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — The earthquake this week in China was in the western part of the country, in Qinghai Province, so it was nowhere near here. We never felt a thing.
The quake hit near a town of 70,000, in Yushu county, near the Sichuan provincial line and 800 km from the site of the horrible Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, as you can see from this map, copyright the BBC.
Hunan, where I live, is just east of Sichuan. China’s provinces are big, like Canada’s, so the apparent proximity translates into thousands of kilometers. Even so, my friends here say they could feel the ground heave when the 7.8 magnitude quake hit Wenchuan in 2008.
Wednesday’s quake was 6.9 on the magnitude scale, bad enough, but not as powerful as the 2008 one. Deaths are estimated at 589 now, and about 10,000 more are injured. Yushu is a rural area, and most folks do not live in the ubiquitous concrete-block homes. Most injuries are from wooden structures collapsing. I have not heard yet whether children going to school that morning may have been inside their concrete schools.
Stay tuned. I’ll try to give more details later.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — The survivors of the March 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake have a lot to say, but the Chinese government won’t let foreign journalists hear it.
Parents whose children died when school buildings collapsed in the 7.9 magnitude quake accuse the government of being complicit in allowing shoddy construction in Wenchuan County.
This reporter for the Financial Times tried to interview one such mother, but men in an unmarked car forcibly prevented him from talking to her. The Chinese government, naturally, denies any such suppression is happening.
I can’t seem to embed the video. Here’s the link: Financial Times report.
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