> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Thursday, May 15, 2008, 3:52 PM
> Soldiers hike to quake-buried Chinese villages
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> By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer Tue May 13, 7:02 PM
> ET
>
> MIANYANG, China - Soldiers hiking over landslide-blocked
> roads reached the epicenter of China's devastating
> earthquake Tuesday, pulling bodies and a few survivors from
> collapsed buildings. The death toll of more than 12,000 was
> certain to rise as the buried were found.
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> Rescuers worked through a steady rain searching wrecked
> towns across hilly stretches of Sichuan province that were
> stricken by Monday's magnitude-7.9 quake, China's
> deadliest in three decades. Tens of thousands spent a
> second night outdoors, some sleeping under plastic
> sheeting, others bused to a stadium in the city of
> Mianyang, on the edge of the disaster area.
> Street lamps were switched on in Mianyang on Tuesday night,
> but all the buildings were dark and deserted after the
> government ordered people out of them for fear of
> aftershocks. Security guards were posted at apartment
> blocks to keep people out.
> The industrial city of 700,000 people — home to the
> headquarters of China's nuclear weapons design industry
> — was turned into a thronging refugee camp, with residents
> sleeping outdoors.
> "I'm cold. I don't dare to sleep, and I'm
> worried a building is going to fall down on me," said
> Tang Ling, a 20-year-old waitress wrapped in a borrowed
> pink down jacket and camped outside the Juyuan restaurant
> with three co-workers. "What's happened is so
> cruel. In one minute to have so many people die is too
> tragic."
> As night fell, a first wave of 200 soldiers entered the
> town of Wenchuan, near the epicenter, trudging across
> ruptured roads and mudslides, state television said.
> Initial reports from troops said one nearby town could
> account for only 2,300 survivors out of 9,000 people, China
> Central Television said.
> At least 12,012 deaths occurred in Sichuan alone while
> another 323 died in five other provinces and the metropolis
> of Chongqing, state media reported. That toll seemed likely
> to jump sharply as rescue teams reached hard-hit towns.
> The devastation and ramped-up rescue across large, heavily
> populated region of farms and factory towns strained local
> governments. Food dwindled on the shelves of the few stores
> that remained open. Gasoline was scarce, with long lines
> outside some stations and pumps marked "empty."
> Buses carried survivors away from Beichuan, which was
> flattened — a few buildings standing amid piles of rubble
> in a narrow valley, according to CCTV video.
> More than 10,000 people from there and surrounding areas
> packed Mianyang's Jiuzhou Gymnasium, with empty water
> bottles, boxes of instant noodles and cigarette cartons
> littering the ground.
> "I saw rocks and earth rolling down the hill, and they
> destroyed whatever they hit below," said a farmer who
> only gave his surname, Chen, from the village of Leigu near
> Beichuan. "There's nothing I can do about this.
> It's all in the hands of the government."
> In the provincial capital of Chengdu, FM-91.4 all-traffic
> radio station operated around the clock, reading text
> messages sent by survivors of stricken areas to let
> relatives know they are alive.
> The government's high-gear response aimed to reassure
> Chinese while showing the world it was capable of handling
> the disaster and was ready for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics in
> Beijing. Although the government said it welcomed outside
> aid, officials said that the assistance would be confined
> to money and supplies, not to foreign personnel.
> As Prime Minister Wen Jiabao crisscrossed the disaster area
> to oversee relief efforts, the official Xinhua news agency
> cited the Defense Ministry as saying that some 20,000
> soldiers and police arrived in the disaster area, with
> 30,000 more on the way by plane, train, truck and on foot.
> "We will save the people," Wen said through a
> bullhorn to survivors in Shifang, where two chemical plants
> collapsed and buried more than 600 people, according to
> CCTV. "As long as the people are there, factories can
> be built into even better ones, and so can the towns and
> counties."
> The Finance Ministry said it had allocated $123 million in
> quake aid.
> At the world famous Wolong National Nature Reserve, all 86
> pandas were reported safe late Tuesday in the first word
> since communications with the preserve were cut off. A
> group of 31 British tourists panda-watching in the preserve
> also returned safely to Chengdu, the Foreign Ministry said,
> although there was no word on 12 missing Americans on a
> World Wildlife Fund tour.
> Still, prospects for survivors in the quake zone dwindled.
> Only 58 people were pulled from demolished buildings across
> the quake area so far, China Seismological Bureau spokesman
> Zhang Hongwei told Xinhua.
> Weeping parents held a vigil in a steady outside a
> collapsed school in the town of Juyuan, where more than 900
> high school students were initially trapped. Only one
> survivor has been found: a girl pulled free by rescue team.
>
> Bowing to public calls, Beijing Olympics organizers scaled
> down the boisterous torch relay, saying Wednesday's leg
> in the southeastern city of Ruijin would begin with a minute
> of silence and more somber ceremonies. People along the
> route for the torch, which next month is scheduled to
> arrive in quake-hit areas, would be asked for donations, an
> organizing committee spokesman said.
> In the areas around Mianyang, more than 7,300 people died
> and 18,000 more were believed trapped in rubble, most in
> Beichuan. Amid the rubble, CCTV showed the six-story
> Beichuan Hotel listing, half its first story collapsed.
> Medical teams tried to treat the wounded in dirt courtyards
> littered with broken furniture and concrete.
> Though Wen and others called for air drops of emergency
> supplies to hard-to-reach areas, rain impeded efforts for a
> second day, and Xinhua said a group of paratroopers called
> off a rescue mission.
> France's nuclear protection watchdog said it did not
> know whether there had been any damage to Chinese nuclear
> facilities in the quake region. Without giving specifics,
> the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear
> Safety said "some" facilities were less than 60
> miles from the epicenter.
> Strong aftershocks — one of magnitude-6, according to
> Chinese seismologists — hit Chengdu, the region's
> usually busy commercial center.
> Expressions of sympathy and offers of help poured in from
> Japan and the European Union. Russia was sending a plane
> with 30 tons of relief supplies, the Interfax news agency
> said. Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed the disaster by
> phone with President Bush.
> The U.S. is offering an initial $500,000 in relief in
> anticipation of an appeal by the International Red Cross,
> White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
> While welcoming the support, the Chinese government
> suggested that aid would be confined to supplies and money,
> not foreign personnel.
> "We welcome funds and supplies. We can't
> accommodate personnel at this point," Wang Zhenyao,
> the Civil Affairs Ministry's top disaster relief
> official, told reporters in Beijing.
> The Dalai Lama, who has been vilified by Chinese
> authorities who blame him for recent unrest in Tibet,
> offered prayers for the victims. The epicenter skirts the
> Tibetan highlands, where some communities staged
> anti-government protests in March.
> Seismologists said the quake was on a level the region sees
> once every 50 to 100 years. The region's last strong
> quake was in 1933, when a magnitude 7.5 quake killed more
> than 9,300 people. Monday's quake was powered up the
> pent-up stress, experts said.
> "I don't think this is unheard of," said Amy
> Vaughn of the U.S. Geological Survey. "It's more
> an issue of how long and how much stress has been built up
> in this region."
> ___
> Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen in Juyuan, Bill
> Foreman in Dujiangyan and Stephen Wade in Beijing
> contributed to this report.
