A student in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, cried at a memorial ceremony last month. (Guang Niu/Getty Images)
"China tries to keep earthquake-formed lake under control; Body of water continues to swell" by Audra Ang, Associated Press | June 10, 2008
Earthquake survivors settled into new homes yesterday as a few start to move into the next phase of temporary shelters in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province, China. Tens of thousands of people have been left homeless and the death toll is over 69,000. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
HONGYE VILLAGE, China - A quake-formed lake continued to swell yesterday even though soldiers used dynamite and antitank weapons to blow up boulders in a diversion channel to try to speed its drainage.
Authorities remained on alert after yet another aftershock jarred the Tangjiashan lake, which could flood more than 1.3 million people downstream if the water flow is not controlled....
The water level was more than 6 feet above the mouth of the spillway and rising, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Authorities were on alert for threats to the dam's stability including increased rainfall, new aftershocks and landslides that could deposit rubble in the lake and push water levels even higher.
More than 250,000 people downstream from Tangjiashan lake have already been evacuated in recent weeks. Many were living in improvised camps on surrounding hillsides, surviving on instant noodles and suffering from heat, mosquitoes, and a lack of water for bathing.
Lu Raoxuang, a farmer in Hongye village about 30 miles downstream from Tangjiashan, said authorities forced him up a nearby hillside one day late last month when he returned home from tending his crops. He said he wasn't even allowed to wash his face before evacuating his two-story brick and concrete home, which was badly damaged in the quake.
The villagers in Lu's camp are free to move about during the day, and he regularly returns to check on his home. But the wiry 58-year-old farmer said he is not allowed to tend to his crops, leaving his corn and sweet potatoes neglected in the field.
"Our land is down here, I don't want to leave my land," Lu said. "I just have to wait for the water and see if it really floods. I'm really worried. I don't know what my future is."
Managing the lake is the latest challenge for the Chinese government, which is already shouldering the burden of caring for the 5 million left homeless by the disaster. As of yesterday, the death toll in the May 12 quake was 69,142, with 17,551 people still missing.
But efforts to control the lake have been hampered by aftershocks. A magnitude 5.0 quake rattled parts of the disaster zone yesterday afternoon, including the Tangjiashan lake. Rocks rolled down mountainsides and the dam shook, Xinhua reported, but added that the dam held.
The 10-second temblor sent people in the hard-hit county of Wenchuan rushing out of shaking buildings and tents, Xinhua said. There were no reports of damage or casualties. The aftershock followed one of the same magnitude the day before."What a mess. What a disaster.
This dulls any excitement about the Olympics no matter what you think of the games.
Oh, China, I also weep for you!!!!
"Internet, hot lines help China quake survivors find relatives; Technology is important tool in searches" by Maureen Fan, Washington Post | June 10, 2008
CHENGDU, China - Not long ago, students from four devastated schools at the epicenter of last month's earthquake were evacuated to a leafy corner of Chengdu's Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, many of them separated from their families by the chaos.
They lined up in quiet rows upon arrival, their clothes covered with debris and faces black with dust, a university professor recalled. In one group, the youngest was only 4 years old.
Today, about 900 young survivors study at a temporary school set up at the university. About 10 have not yet found any relatives. Others, though, have either had emotional reunions or discovered that one or both parents have died.
In less than three weeks, the vast majority of the estimated 8,000 students who escaped collapsed classrooms have been reunited with parents or relatives, in part thanks to websites, hot lines, and the work of scores of volunteers.
In some cases, parents simply called their children's teachers, who often knew who had survived and who hadn't, said Zeng Daorong, an assistant principal and economics professor at the university.
"We set up four meeting rooms here, and the scenes were so touching. The families hugged each other and cried, and later they laughed," Zeng said. "But some grandparents came and told students that their mother or father had died, and the students would suddenly cry out. I have a 14-year-old daughter. Before the earthquake, I seldom had tears. But after this, I can cry every night."
Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!
As of Thursday, 1,200 children remained separated from their families, including several hundred who had lost both parents, according to Ye Lu, director of the social welfare division of Sichuan's civil affairs office.
For those who have been reunited, however, technology has proved to be a boon.
On May 14, more than 140 patients, mostly children with broken arms and legs, were airlifted to Chengdu's Huaxi Hospital, one of the largest in the region. Immediately afterward, the hospital was flooded with several hundred family members looking for relatives.
"Because they were brought by helicopter, most patients had been separated from their families. Since they were searching, and since we had more people coming here to look for relatives than we had patients, we decided to publish a patient list online," said Liao Zhilin, the hospital's director of propaganda.
Unlike in the United States, where privacy concerns might slow the process, volunteers photographed many of the patients and posted the images online. The hospital shared patient information with the volunteers, including arrival times and home addresses.
"Many other websites linked to our website. More than 95 percent of the 2,700 patients who have come through here were reunited with their families," Liao said.
The hospital also set up tables and tents in a courtyard outside the main patient building for about 10 days. Volunteers from technology companies and other businesses provided at least 20 computers during peak times and telephone companies provided at least 30 phones.
"Although farmers don't have access to the Internet, there were so many volunteers and hotline operators with Internet access who could help them," Liao said. "If so many people had to search by themselves, they would have walked through all the patients' rooms and interrupted our work. The wards would look like a big market, with so many people."
One of the parents searching for children was Li Bo, from Wenchuan county, near the quake's epicenter. Li recalled learning that her daughter Huang Siyu, 12, had been injured and flown to the provincial capital of Chengdu. But she had no way of finding her.
Then, on May 17, a relative in Chengdu called to say he had checked the Internet and found the girl's name on the patient list at Huaxi Hospital.
The next day, a volunteer in the tents in front of the hospital led Li to her daughter's bedside on the second floor of Building No. 2. The girl's leg had been pinned under the rubble and had to be amputated after she was rescued.
"After I saw her, I held her and cried and cried. But my daughter comforted me saying, 'Mom, I can still walk with an artificial leg.' I had imagined that she was lying in bed, so lonely, but she was surrounded by volunteers," Li said. "I kneeled down to them, I was so thankful."
In Mianyang, residents of a giant tent city at the Jiu Zhou Sports Stadium had no Internet access. But each day a makeshift radio station broadcast names of the missing while telecom companies provided access to free phone calls. In front of a bulletin board full of fliers for missing children, computer science engineers set up two laptops to help enter into a database the names of people looking for relatives.
Does that remind you of something (9/11), Americans?!
Please remember this the next time you want to bash China, 'kay?!
"Widespread mobile phone use and the Internet have brought about a big change in being able to share people's data so quickly," said Long Er, a software company employee who asked to be identified by his online name, and who with four colleagues started a website, 512help.com, to help quake victims. "Ten years ago, it would have been impossible that so many resources would combine like this."
Yes, the Internet is not just a tool to expose lying media and elites!!!!
In Chengdu, people who dialed 114 for directory inquiries on their cellphones were connected to a hot line that grouped people in two categories: survivors and those in search of them. Callers' identities and phone numbers were registered, as well as detailed descriptions of the missing."
