Sichuan quake leaves 200 people dead or missing, 11,800 injured and an estimated 100,000 homeless as clean up begins
Hours after they dug out Wang Qiong's body they buried her again on a mountain slope close by what remained of her home: a heap of rubble and heavy concrete slabs. Her dazed, red-eyed widower and 12-year-old younger daughter clambered over the ruins on Sunday, salvaging stray items: a toy giraffe; a single trainer; letters.
Wang's elder daughter barely had time to comfort them before she left to tend to the stream of patients at a nearby hospital. "Mum, I need to help other people now," the nurse said as she left her mother's graveside.
More than 200 people are dead or missing after the powerful earthquake rocked Sichuan, south-west China, at 8.02am on Saturday – arousing memories of the devastating shock along the same faultline that killed tens of thousands in the province five years ago next month.
Another 11,800 are injured, almost 1,000 seriously, and an estimated 100,000 homeless. Blocked roads and damaged communications have hampered efforts to rescue survivors and provide emergency shelter and supplies, with aftershocks of 5.4 magnitude triggering repeated landslides.
Wang's sister-in-law, Zhang Dexiang, was working at a brick factory when the quake struck "We started work as usual at 8am, but all the machines began jumping," she said. "We panicked and ran outside. We all rushed back home but by the time I got here there was nothing left. When we dug [Wang] out, she was already dead."
Wang, 45, was a warm, gentle woman, loved for her kindness to children and the elderly. Due to a disability, she stayed at home raising pigs while the rest of the household went out to work; she was the only one there when the house collapsed around her.
Now her family are sheltering under a tarpaulin with the meagre possessions they retrieved: a few wooden stools and a couple of quilts. "We have nothing," said Zhang.
The wreckage of the 6.6 magnitude quake lay strewn across the area around the epicentre near Ya'an city: a car crushed by a huge boulder; cracks in the roads and toppled telegraph poles; ceilings and walls that had slammed to the ground; pavements thick with bricks strewn by slumping buildings; a house now useless but so new that its windows still bore tape when they crashed from their frames. In one sagging building, an enormous hog, loosed by the quake, rooted through its master's destroyed kitchen.
The area is known for its beauty: its river gorges, thick bamboo groves and lush green paddy fields. But the steep wooded slopes bore the red scars of landslides, and aftershocks continued to shake the ground on Sunday, further unnerving survivors.
The Sichuan meteorological observatory warned that rain was likely in the quake zone over the next three days. The county government for Lushan, badly hit by the disaster, said water had already been drained from five reservoirs that had suffered cracks and leakage to protect residents.
The Chinese premier Li Keqiang flew into the disaster zone, where he met rescuers and survivors. "Treat and heal your wounds with peace of mind," the state news agency Xinhua quoted Li as telling patients at a hospital. "The government will take care of all the costs for those severely wounded."
State media said that rescuers had pulled a three-month-old baby alive from the rubble of her mountain home, although her mother had died in the quake. In another development, a 12-year-old girl reportedly emerged from a coma as she was treated at a military hospital in Chengdu after she was dug out of the ruins of their house.
Thousands of troops have swarmed the area, clearing roads, restoring communications, helping specialist teams to search for survivors and setting up camps for the homeless. Xinhua said 18,000 soldiers had been dispatched.
But landslides reblocked cleared roads, officials said. Military and rescue vehicles also congested the narrow mountain road from Ya'an city to Lushan, which was closed to all but emergency vehicles for hours.
Hundreds of armed police marched in single file, bearing shovels, to Baoxing, one of the worst hit areas, before the route was repaired late on Sunday. At least 26 died there and 40,000 are homeless, the state news agency reported.
Xinhua warned that rescuers had yet to reach some parts of the quake zone. But Chen Yong, the vice director of the Ya'an city government earthquake response office, told reporters that he believed the death toll was unlikely to rise dramatically.
Casualties include two rescuers who were in a vehicle that plunged off a 300-metre cliff in Baoxing county, Xinhua said.
China's foreign ministry said foreign rescue teams and medical and relief supplies were not needed, citing the problems with traffic and communications in the quake zone.
"The Lushan county centre is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way."
Throughout the disaster zone, survivors sat along the roadside, some with bloodied bandages, under crude shelters they had arranged themselves or emergency tents from rescuers.
Though relief teams quickly set up camps in some areas, survivors were still begging workers for tents. Xinhua reported shortages of drinking water and at one junction, a group of children and old people held up cardboard signs pleading for water.
Li Baojun, deputy head of the disaster relief department of the civil affairs ministry, said 30,000 tents, 50,000 quilts and 10,000 camp beds would be transported to the provincial capital Chengdu for distribution to affected areas as soon as possible.
Disease prevention work has already started, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said, and psychological help will be provided for vulnerable people.
One woman described how her legs had turned to jelly as she watched her house fall down – but beamed as she recalled the moment she saw her children emerge unscathed.
"We heard an explosion in the mountains first, like an eruption from a volcano," said 40-year-old Peng Guiwu, wearing a neighbour's clothes because she had not dressed when the shock hit.
"Then dust started falling and the houses were groaning and everything started collapsing. My husband and I grabbed our kids and ran. Everything was moving," she added, showing the scars on her legs and arm where furniture had smashed into her as she escaped. "I was scared to death – the children were so frightened they clung to us."
Though 2008's earthquake was many times the power of Saturday's, and far more deadly, it left Ya'an and the surrounding area largely unscathed.
"Last time there were only a few tiles that came loose and we repaired it very quickly," said Peng, whose house now bears a long crack down its front. "But we learnt from that earthquake. We used quilts to cover our heads."
Many residents said the training and information programmes that followed the last earthquake had taught them what to do: leave at once, protect your heads, gather well away from buildings. That helped to ensure that a mother escaped with her seven-day-old baby unscathed; and that a 15-year-old boy carried his little sister to safety while his mother was out.
But Peng's neighbour lost her little girl in the quake, and was lying injured in hospital. Tan Xuelan, 84, could not move as the house collapsed around her and was saved by the kindness of a neighbour, who returned to carry her to safety. And Wang, who found it hard to walk due to her disability, was crushed before she could make it out of the door.
Experience was not enough to save those who were too small, too slow or simply too unlucky. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
Hours after they dug out Wang Qiong's body they buried her again on a mountain slope close by what remained of her home: a heap of rubble and heavy concrete slabs. Her dazed, red-eyed widower and 12-year-old younger daughter clambered over the ruins on Sunday, salvaging stray items: a toy giraffe; a single trainer; letters.
Wang's elder daughter barely had time to comfort them before she left to tend to the stream of patients at a nearby hospital. "Mum, I need to help other people now," the nurse said as she left her mother's graveside.
More than 200 people are dead or missing after the powerful earthquake rocked Sichuan, south-west China, at 8.02am on Saturday – arousing memories of the devastating shock along the same faultline that killed tens of thousands in the province five years ago next month.
Another 11,800 are injured, almost 1,000 seriously, and an estimated 100,000 homeless. Blocked roads and damaged communications have hampered efforts to rescue survivors and provide emergency shelter and supplies, with aftershocks of 5.4 magnitude triggering repeated landslides.
Wang's sister-in-law, Zhang Dexiang, was working at a brick factory when the quake struck "We started work as usual at 8am, but all the machines began jumping," she said. "We panicked and ran outside. We all rushed back home but by the time I got here there was nothing left. When we dug [Wang] out, she was already dead."
Wang, 45, was a warm, gentle woman, loved for her kindness to children and the elderly. Due to a disability, she stayed at home raising pigs while the rest of the household went out to work; she was the only one there when the house collapsed around her.
Now her family are sheltering under a tarpaulin with the meagre possessions they retrieved: a few wooden stools and a couple of quilts. "We have nothing," said Zhang.
The wreckage of the 6.6 magnitude quake lay strewn across the area around the epicentre near Ya'an city: a car crushed by a huge boulder; cracks in the roads and toppled telegraph poles; ceilings and walls that had slammed to the ground; pavements thick with bricks strewn by slumping buildings; a house now useless but so new that its windows still bore tape when they crashed from their frames. In one sagging building, an enormous hog, loosed by the quake, rooted through its master's destroyed kitchen.
The area is known for its beauty: its river gorges, thick bamboo groves and lush green paddy fields. But the steep wooded slopes bore the red scars of landslides, and aftershocks continued to shake the ground on Sunday, further unnerving survivors.
The Sichuan meteorological observatory warned that rain was likely in the quake zone over the next three days. The county government for Lushan, badly hit by the disaster, said water had already been drained from five reservoirs that had suffered cracks and leakage to protect residents.
The Chinese premier Li Keqiang flew into the disaster zone, where he met rescuers and survivors. "Treat and heal your wounds with peace of mind," the state news agency Xinhua quoted Li as telling patients at a hospital. "The government will take care of all the costs for those severely wounded."
State media said that rescuers had pulled a three-month-old baby alive from the rubble of her mountain home, although her mother had died in the quake. In another development, a 12-year-old girl reportedly emerged from a coma as she was treated at a military hospital in Chengdu after she was dug out of the ruins of their house.
Thousands of troops have swarmed the area, clearing roads, restoring communications, helping specialist teams to search for survivors and setting up camps for the homeless. Xinhua said 18,000 soldiers had been dispatched.
But landslides reblocked cleared roads, officials said. Military and rescue vehicles also congested the narrow mountain road from Ya'an city to Lushan, which was closed to all but emergency vehicles for hours.
Hundreds of armed police marched in single file, bearing shovels, to Baoxing, one of the worst hit areas, before the route was repaired late on Sunday. At least 26 died there and 40,000 are homeless, the state news agency reported.
Xinhua warned that rescuers had yet to reach some parts of the quake zone. But Chen Yong, the vice director of the Ya'an city government earthquake response office, told reporters that he believed the death toll was unlikely to rise dramatically.
Casualties include two rescuers who were in a vehicle that plunged off a 300-metre cliff in Baoxing county, Xinhua said.
China's foreign ministry said foreign rescue teams and medical and relief supplies were not needed, citing the problems with traffic and communications in the quake zone.
"The Lushan county centre is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way."
Throughout the disaster zone, survivors sat along the roadside, some with bloodied bandages, under crude shelters they had arranged themselves or emergency tents from rescuers.
Though relief teams quickly set up camps in some areas, survivors were still begging workers for tents. Xinhua reported shortages of drinking water and at one junction, a group of children and old people held up cardboard signs pleading for water.
Li Baojun, deputy head of the disaster relief department of the civil affairs ministry, said 30,000 tents, 50,000 quilts and 10,000 camp beds would be transported to the provincial capital Chengdu for distribution to affected areas as soon as possible.
Disease prevention work has already started, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said, and psychological help will be provided for vulnerable people.
One woman described how her legs had turned to jelly as she watched her house fall down – but beamed as she recalled the moment she saw her children emerge unscathed.
"We heard an explosion in the mountains first, like an eruption from a volcano," said 40-year-old Peng Guiwu, wearing a neighbour's clothes because she had not dressed when the shock hit.
"Then dust started falling and the houses were groaning and everything started collapsing. My husband and I grabbed our kids and ran. Everything was moving," she added, showing the scars on her legs and arm where furniture had smashed into her as she escaped. "I was scared to death – the children were so frightened they clung to us."
Though 2008's earthquake was many times the power of Saturday's, and far more deadly, it left Ya'an and the surrounding area largely unscathed.
"Last time there were only a few tiles that came loose and we repaired it very quickly," said Peng, whose house now bears a long crack down its front. "But we learnt from that earthquake. We used quilts to cover our heads."
Many residents said the training and information programmes that followed the last earthquake had taught them what to do: leave at once, protect your heads, gather well away from buildings. That helped to ensure that a mother escaped with her seven-day-old baby unscathed; and that a 15-year-old boy carried his little sister to safety while his mother was out.
But Peng's neighbour lost her little girl in the quake, and was lying injured in hospital. Tan Xuelan, 84, could not move as the house collapsed around her and was saved by the kindness of a neighbour, who returned to carry her to safety. And Wang, who found it hard to walk due to her disability, was crushed before she could make it out of the door.
Experience was not enough to save those who were too small, too slow or simply too unlucky. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.