DUJIANGYAN, China, May 14, 2008
Rescuers Reach Epicenter Of China Quake
Soldiers Sent To Repair "Extremely Dangerous" Cracks In Dam; Death Toll Nears 15,000
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Rescuers carry a female survivor out of a school damaged following Monday's powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Hanwang town in Sichuan province, China, Wednesday, May 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
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In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, firemen carry a student who was buried at a school building, in Beichuan County, northeast of the epicenter, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Tuesday, May 13, 2008. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Chen Faliang)
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The hands of dead students are seen among the rubble of a collapsed school in Dujiangyan, a close city to the epicenter of the earthquake, in southwest China's Sichuan province Tuesday May 13, 2008. (AP)
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A woman reacts over the loss of her child at the site of a collapsed school in Dujiangyan, one of the closest cities to the epicenter of Monday's earthquake, in southwest China's Sichuan province Tuesday, May 13, 2008. (AP)
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Residents holding umbrellas walk past a building collapsed following Monday's powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Dujiangyan, southwestern China's Sichuan province, Tuesday, May 13, 2008. Bad weather is hampering rescue efforts at one of the worst earthquake disasters in recent history. (AP)
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The official Xinhua News Agency said some 2,000 soldiers were sent to repair "extremely dangerous" cracks in the Zipingpu Dam upriver from the earthquake-hit city of Dujiangyan.
The government said late Wednesday that experts had inspected the dam and declared it safe, according to a statement broadcast on state TV and posted on the Sichuan government Web site.
Still, another report said the reservoir behind the dam was being emptied to relieve pressure on the structure.
"The flow is extremely swift, and the bottom of the reservoir can be seen, showing the riverbed," the state-sponsored Chinese business news magazine Caijing said in a report from the scene that was posted on its Web site.
Four-inch cracks had opened up on top of the dam, and landslides poured down on the hills on either side, the report said.
China's top economic planning body said that the quake had damaged 391 mostly small dams. He Biao, the director of the Aba Disaster Relief headquarters in northern Sichuan province, said there were concerns over dams close to the epicenter.
"Currently, the most dangerous problems are several reservoirs near Wenchuan," he said, according to a transcript on the CCTV Web site.
"There are already serious problems with the Tulong Reservoir on the Min River. It may collapse. If that happens, it would affect several power plants below and be extremely dangerous," he said.
Help also began to arrive by helicopter and on foot in some of the hardest-to-reach areas, where some victims trapped for more than two days under collapsed buildings were still being pulled out alive. But the enormous scale of the devastation meant that resources were stretched thin, and makeshift aid stations and refugee centers were springing up over the disaster area the size of Belgium.
The death toll of nearly 15,000 appeared likely to soar far higher
View The Map Of The AreaLeveled hospitals forced doctors and nurses to treat survivors in the street. Helicopters dropped food and medicine to isolated towns. Mourners burned money before rows of bodies, believing their lost relatives could use it in the afterlife.
Peter Ford, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who has spent the last couple days in Sichuan province, told CBS' The Early Show on Wednesday that Chinese troops are getting to worst hit areas, but slowly.
"I don't think they're getting there in large enough numbers. Nor are they necessarily getting the right amount of equipment in there because these are ordinarily not easily accessible places, and now the roads are blocked," he said.
Xinhua quoted government officials as saying rescuers who hiked Wednesday into the city of Yingxiu in Wenchuan county - the epicenter of the quake - found only 2,300 survivors in the town of about 10,000, with another 1,000 badly hurt.
The official death toll rose Wednesday to 14,866, Xinhua said, but it was not immediately clear if that number included the 7,700 reported dead in Yingxiu. In Sichuan province alone, another 25,788 people were buried and 1,405 were missing, provincial vice governor Li Chengyun said, according to Xinhua.
Twelve Americans were found safe near the epicenter of the quake.
A spokeswoman for the World Wildlife Fund said the 12 members of the wildlife group were reached by satellite phone earlier in the day. The team was near the world's most famous panda preserve in Wolong, whose pandas were reported safe Tuesday.
Unlike previous natural disasters in China, official media have reported prominently on the quake and state TV canceled regular programming to run 24-hour coverage.
Scenes of destruction and death have been shown, along with prominent focus on Premier Wen Jiabao, who rushed Monday to Sichuan to oversee the rescue work. He has been shown crawling into collapsed buildings to urge survivors to hang on with impassioned pleas, and seen reassuring children who had lost parents.
Wen was there when one 3-year-old girl trapped for more than 40 hours under the bodies of her parents was pulled to safety Wednesday in Beichuan region, Xinhua said.
Wen toured the worst-hit areas in a high-profile attempt to show the government is in touch with the people's suffering but for most people, the waiting is unbearable, reports CBS News' Celia Hatton.
"The government hasn't come here yet," said one farmer. "There is nobody asking about us. No one cares about our food and water."
Rescuers found Song Xinyi on Tuesday morning, but were unable to pull her out right away due to fears the debris above her would collapse. She was fed and shielded from the rain until rescuers extricated her from the rubble.
Elsewhere, a 34-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant was rescued after spending 50 hours under debris in Dujiangyan.
"It's a miracle brought about by us all working together," said Sun Guoli, fire chief of the nearby provincial capital Chengdu, who supervised the rescue.
The show of official empathy was aimed at reassuring the public about the government's response and also showing the world the country is ready to host the Beijing Olympics in August. Wednesday's leg of the Olympic torch relay in the southeastern city of Ruijin began with a minute of silence.
Pope Benedict XVI said he was praying for the victims.
President Hu Jintao presided over an emergency meeting of the Communist Party's highest body, the second such meeting since the quake happened. Hu, also secretary-general of the party, urged the military, police and others to rush to the disaster area to help.
The death toll from the quake was expected to rise when rescuers reach other towns in Wenchuan county that remained cut off.
"The Communist Party Central Committee has not forgotten this place," Wen said after flying by helicopter to Wenchuan, adding that some 50 injured people had been airlifted from the area.
Relief efforts were aided in their third day by the clearing of storms that had prevented flights over some of the worst-hit towns. Military helicopters seen flying north over Dujiangyan, and Xinhua said some had airdropped food, drinking water and medicine to Yingxiu.
East of the epicenter in the town of Hanwang, the smell of incense hung over a crowd of sobbing relatives who walked among some 60 bodies wrapped in plastic, some covered with tributes of branches or flowers.
Nearby, rescuers carried more bodies out of a makeshift morgue at the Dongqi sports arena. People from the town and surrounding areas packed into blue tents provided by relief officials. A Western-style clock tower in the town center had stopped at 2:27 - the time the quake hit.
The Mianzhu No. 3 Hospital was obliterated, and the seven-story main Hanwang Hospital collapsed. Surviving medical staff set up a triage center in the driveway of a tire factory, but could only provide basic care.
"The first day hundreds of kids died when a school collapsed. The rest who came in had serious injuries. There was so little we could do for them," said Zhao Xiaoli, a nurse at Hanwang Hospital.
Emergency vehicle sirens sounded every few minutes. An ambulance drove in, delivering a man pulled from the rubble and covered in dust.
"There will be a lot more people. So many still haven't been found," said Zhao.
Disorienting episodes added to the struggle for survival in much of the disaster zone. The Mianyang city government ordered its 700,000 residents to evacuate all buildings between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. because an aftershock was predicted.
In Chengdu, water to some parts of the city was cut for repairs, touching off a rumor that the supply was contaminated. People began hoarding water and water pressure citywide dropped before a senior official went on TV to deny anything was wrong.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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How long must we sit idly by while our mother continues to suffer from the warming taking place at a feverish pace? How long must our mother suffer before we have proper c02 taxes put into place? How long must the destruction of mother earth take place before we finally put responsible plans into action? How long must we wait until we beef up our corn ethanol production? At least Obama wants to cut c02 pollution by 80%; he is definitely our best hope.
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We the people call upon our leaders to implement a comprehensive antiglobal warming strategy at once and work in coordination with state and federal officials; these quakes, cyclones and disasters continue to worsen and the quicker we stop the warming the sooner we will see these quakes and storms cease. We need action now.
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man, that is one hell of a lot of dams.
it is too bad that you cannot see past the government of these people. it is not about the supporting the chinese government, or their religion.
it is about helping helpless people, did you understand the word ''people''.
not the government that they just so happen to be born under, the ''people'' if they do not have the help from their government, then they need out thoughts and aid more than ever.
you are heartless.
people; women, children, babies, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. all love, breathe, feel, and need help.
Posted by mentor397
I guess everyone''s Chickens are Coming Home to Roost.
the ethnic minority "people" by assimilitation?
Oh that''s right keep one''s mouth shut i China or go to the klink to get your head right..
i am glad that i am not as narrow minded as you are. i am glad that i am able to put aside governmental issues to feel for thousands of people that have no control over their government or their natural tragedy.
i am glad that america captured saddam and that we are helping another group of helpless people gain their freedom of speech. i hope we are never under those circumstance, however if we are, including your sorry assss, i hope that other nations will also put aside their governmental issues and offer aid if we need it.
and no, the hurricanes and tornadoes do not even come close to the great tragedy as hundreds and thousands of people loosing their lives.
our tragedies are horrible here in america. and i am glad we are able to pick ourselves back up and move forward. well, except for new orleans. but that is another story.
Posted by bdrlnt4rl at 12:34 PM : May 14, 2008
Good posts.
"i am glad that america captured saddam..."
I am also glad.
Your screen name betrays your ignorance.
Freaky!
This is why so many buildings are built crisply and ruined in the earthquake while real estate developers earn big money.
saving one child from the hands of a sadistic killer, saddam, who orders his troops to cut out his tongue in front of the parents, is worth it. and i will tell you that the majority of the US soldiers will say the same. even the ones who unfortunately lost their lives.
just had a friend rejoin so he could go back to iraq. hmmm, and he is not the first to do so.
So your analyst means a 7.9 earthquake in downtown San Francisco means no buildings will collapse because our Capitalist society got no corruption.
Incredible that in time of tragedies, some will not unite for humanity but find something to bite on just for a little hype.
When San Francisco does get the BIG one soon, I hope China will come to help us instead of critizing us.
Posted by nrgmizer
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I really do hope that the chinese government will build with high standards. people deserve it. even here in america, in tornado alley, the only time rebuild takes place is when a tornado levels your house. i am just glad that we have the higher standards on new construction.
i also know that there are several churches that build in the way you are speaking of.
in the eyes of a 16 year old, we are invincible. in the eyes of a realistic mind, we are very vulnerable.
So your analysis means a 7.9 earthquake in downtown San Francisco will results in no buildings collapsing because our Capitalism Capital society got no corruption.
Incredible that in time of tragedies, some will not unite for humanity but find something to bite on just for a little hype.
When San Francisco does get the BIG one soon, I hope China will come to help us in the name of humanity instead of criticizing us.
In October 17, 1989, there was a 6.9 earthquake near San Francisco. About 5 miles of 2 major freeways collapsed. According to your analysis, was there major corruptions when those 2 freeways were constructed just 35 years ago?
in the eyes of a 16 year old, we are invincible. in the eyes of a realistic mind, we are very vulnerable
a lot of times it appears governments act like 16 year olds
''... lot of times it appears governments act like 16 year old.''
You are absolutely correct. My grandfather used to tell me "Government is a Rear-View Image of WE THE PEOPLE"
I never voted for president Bush but millions of Americans did TWICE.
http://www.ce.washington.edu/~liquefaction/html/quakes/kobe/kobe.html
The Japanese are experts in building quake proof structures. The China quake had 10 times the shake amplitude and 31.6 times more energy than the Kobe one! The energy released in this monster quake was equivalent to more than 300 Hiroshima A-bombs!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale
Pointing finger is easy to do but at least some of you could have said something nicer or better still, open your wallet and donate. We Americans can do better.
BINGO! You hit the nail with the hammer. Open your heart and help. Be a human being at least.
wish you would bury your head deep in the sand. i prefer not to judge anybody because of their government they were born in. these people need the worlds support more than ever because of the poor government they were born in.
it is too bad and very sad that since you claim you have walked with these people in china, that you have no feelings for them in their time of tragedy.
you are pathetic and your silence is a must.
Posted by kermitF
I suspect 300 is vast underestimate.
Given the damage caused in Kobe and SF (1989) I personally would rather not be in SF downtown in a 7.9 quake. New buildings might be OK (post 1972) the older ones are still likely to collapse.
being that your already there........
your silence is greatly appreciated
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