WenChuan County was a quiet small county surrounded by mountains on three directions, and beside a river. Since yesterday 2 pm, some say 500 minor shakes continued in last 20 hours. In worst assumption, the county could be buried alive if nearby mountains slided, and river bank collapsed.
Sichuan has the most difficult geographic roads. I have been to Jiuzhaigou, which is within 50 Km to Wenchuan. That journey from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou, was the most impressive in my life. Bus climbed slowly along S shaped narrow double carriage roads, outside window were steep cliff and mountain wall on each side. No wonder large quantity PLA could not reach WenChuan in trucks.
As I knew, 5 hours after the quake, a 150-man rescue team were despatched to access WenChuan on foot. Today morning, the army decided to parachute PLA down with essential rescue facility. Frankly, this order put solders’ lives on the line. But, no other choice. Parachuting was the only solution to save lives.
China is worried about the county’s 100,000 local residents. Chinese people started donate money, blood and other materials since yesterday. If WenChuan was as bad as Tangshan in 1976 quake, we need international help. Bless China.
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Brian // May 14, 2008 at 3:33 pm
It seems pretty horrible. I’m always leery of death counts so quickly after the accident. I was in the SF earthquake and papers were reporting thousands dead but less than 100 were actually killed. Still this one seems to particularly bad. I just hope the high numbers are just poor reporting.
I’m pretty impressed at how quickly the government responded. A lot of international aid has already been dedicated to Burma but it doesn’t look like China needs outside help at this point. It doesn’t seem that it’s possible to get aid to Sichuan faster than it’s already getting there. California rescue teams are on standby. I just hope it isn’t as bad as suspected.
2 admin // May 15, 2008 at 4:56 am
Brian, casualties are pretty bad. In a small county, nearly half population diminished. I saw many dead bodies, though larger numbers were still uncovered underneath the ground. Pretty sad. Many children were caught in this disaster, because all school started afternoon sessions when earthquake happened.
China need material aids than rescue team. Reasons are:
1. The most serious disaster-hit region were shut off traffic due to landslide, collapsed buildings, collapsed traffic tunnels. International rescue team could not access.
2. If international rescue aids arrived, we will have new responsibilites of finding translators, providing higene and safe accomodations, which are not possible in those small ruined counties.
3. We need money, quilts, clothes, tents etc. to help our brothers and sisters rebuild homes.
3 Rick in China // May 19, 2008 at 12:03 am
RE: “3. We need money, quilts, clothes, tents etc. to help our brothers and sisters rebuild homes.”
My friend works here with foreign aid. He let me know that international foreign aid support has reached 3.2 billion USD as of last friday. BILLION. Tiny county. They better have a few shanghais in sichuan when all is said and done, otherwise I can imagine the finger-pointing at corruption.
4 Brian // May 19, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Do you see aid going out to the country? Are they’re displaced people coming into Chengdu?
5 Rick in China // May 22, 2008 at 3:59 am
Yes Brian, there is a lot of aid going out to the country - however some of the mountain villages..well, it’s slow going - reason being that the narrow roads are in many places covered in mountainslides, so there is 2 methods: helicopter when available, and by foot - vans of stuff going up then by foot to where other vans can pick it up…that style of transportation. There is not a significant migration into Chengdu, most people are just camping outside in fields where possible. The problem is there is continued aftershocks, and for me the aftershocks are tiny - but when you’re on a crappy little road that has mountainslides - it can mean death.
6 Brian // May 23, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I’m glad you’re OK, man. I remember a year or two after the loma prieta earthquake I still got jumpy when I felt the floor vibrate. An off balance washing machine, a fast bus, kids jumping up and down could just make me jolt and I didn’t think I particularly affected by the quake.
It’s a pretty staggering tragedy. It’s heartbreaking to see the images. It’s hard to imagine how things can be getting back to normal but is Chengdu approaching normalcy or does the relief and recovery still affect the daily life?
Thanks for letting us know what’s going on, Rick. I appreciate your posts.
7 Rick in China // May 26, 2008 at 1:18 am
Hi Brian,
I think you’re missing part of the idea here - the problem isn’t in Chengdu. Chengdu (the heavily populated area) was not damaged with any significance. I didn’t see any structural damage anywhere. There was some cracking in walls but it was superficial (ie where drywall lines up or outer crusted layers on older brick buildings cracked).
The damage and loss of life was outside of the city, in small towns mostly in the mountainside. Villages made of 30-40 year old brick buildings which collapsed due to…well, construction quality and age. They are the people who need and are receiving aid…what disgusts me now is gov’t claiming things like 11 billion RMB in damages to the electricity grid and using foreign aid to cover it. The people who lost their apartments, family members, and jobs in the countryside and do not have insurance to help with those losses should be receiving 100% of the aid, which is who I’m sure the intented beneficiaries of the people and companies who donated were.
There were an amazing number of aftershocks with this quake. In fact, the largest, happened just yesterday, it was a 6.0. In Chengdu it was a reasonable rocking but again, no structural damage. People now are getting used to the quakes….there were something like 94 SO FAR over 4.0 listed and identified in this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2008_Sichuan_earthquake_aftershocks
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