EARTHQUAKE IN CHINA
CENTRO ANTI-BLASFEMIA
By Dingmin Zhang and Aaron Sheldrick
May 13 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese rescuers struggled to reach Wenchuan,
near the epicenter of the country's worst earthquake in 58 years, as
the death toll rose above 12,000.
Rain grounded helicopters and most roads in the area are rubble-
strewn, hampering attempts to get to Wenchuan, state-run Xinhua News
Agency said. The first soldiers helping with rescue and relief efforts
arrived in Wenchuan, a city of 118,000 in the foothills of the Tibetan
plateau, state-run China Central Television reported at about 2 p.m.
local time today.
``Rescue teams of soldiers and armed police officers are going all out
to reach the worst-hit regions and many have already started rescuing
trapped people,'' Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said today at disaster-
relief headquarters in the town of Dujiangyan, near the epicenter, in
comments cited by Xinhua.
Sichuan Vice Governor Li Chengyun said the death toll in his province,
the most seriously affected region, exceeded 12,000, with 26,206
people injured, Xinhua reported. He said more than 9,400 people were
buried under rubble.
The 7.9-magnitude earthquake yesterday struck 80 kilometers (50 miles)
from the Sichuan capital, Chengdu, a metropolitan area that's home to
11 million people. There is little contact with Wenchuan, 14
kilometers from the epicenter, Xinhua said.
``Communications are very patchy,'' Nan Buzard, senior director of
international disaster response at the American Red Cross, said on
Bloomberg Television. It may take a week before a full assessment of
casualties, damage and the needs of survivors is made, she said.
Huddling Outside
Tens of thousands of people were huddling in the rain in Chengdu and
other areas, afraid to go indoors as aftershocks rattled the region,
according to state television. Chengdu is about 1,500 kilometers
southwest of Beijing, where the quake shook buildings, sending people
streaming onto the streets.
More than 1,950 aftershocks have been recorded, with 3 stronger than
magnitude 6, CCTV reported at about 3:30 p.m. local time today. A 5.9-
magnitude quake struck the area at 3:07 p.m., the U.S. Geological
Survey said on its Web site.
About 50,000 military personnel are being sent to the region, state
media reported. The government increased the allocation for disaster
relief by more than four times to 860 million yuan ($123 million), the
Ministry of Finance said in a statement on its Web site.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs said it has dispatched more than 60,000
tents to the region and the Ministry of Health issued a national
appeal for blood donations to be sent to local hospitals. China's
central government distributed 360 million yuan in relief funds to the
disaster-hit areas on May 12 and 13, the ministry said.
Foreign Assistance
The Red Cross in China has received more than 65 million yuan in
donations from companies and organizations including Intel Corp as of
today, state television said. Other companies including Carrefour SA,
Toyota Motor Corp. and Bank of Communications Ltd. pledged funds to
aid rescue work.
Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said his government would
donate about $5 million to the recovery efforts, Kyodo News reported.
China will ``welcome help and assistance from the international
community,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news
briefing in Beijing today.
Multiple Disasters
International relief officials said efforts to respond simultaneously
to the China quake and the May 3 Myanmar cyclone, while difficult,
aren't unprecedented. In 2004 and 2005, relief agencies raised money
for victims of Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., the Indian Ocean tsunami
and the Pakistan earthquake.
``Our donors know we often work on more than one disaster,'' said
Carolyn O'Brien of AmeriCares in Stamford, Connecticut. ``At one
point, we were raising money for both Katrina and Pakistan, and we had
donors still giving money for the tsunami.''
Wen, who flew to the disaster zone yesterday, ordered rescue workers
to open roads to Wenchuan and other areas by midnight today, Xinhua
said. He spoke after an emergency meeting at 7 a.m.
The quake leveled about 500,000 houses in Sichuan and other areas, and
more than 2,000 students and teachers were buried in schools in the
province, Xinhua said.
More than 2,000 died and 10,000 were hurt in Mianzhu city, some 30
kilometers from the earthquake's epicenter, and 4,800 people are
estimated to be buried under the debris of collapsed buildings, Xinhua
said today. As many as 5,000 people were killed and 10,000 injured in
one county, Beichuan, the agency said in a report late yesterday.
Olympic Torch
The organizers of the Beijing Olympic Games said today they have no
plans to postpone or alter the route of the Olympic torch relay in
Sichuan, scheduled to pass through the province between June 15 and
18. The procession doesn't cross the disaster zone, said Li Zhanjun,
director of Beijing's Olympic media center.
Sichuan and surrounding areas are among the most populous in the
country. The province has 40 percent of China's gas deposits and
produced about 22 percent of its natural gas output in 2006, according
to China National Petroleum Corp. and BP Plc's annual energy report.
It also has the country's largest panda reserve.
China's Work Safety Bureau ordered all mines, oil and gas wells and
chemical plants in the region to be shut.
The quake caused two chemical plants in Sichuan's Shenfang city to
collapse, leaking large amounts of liquid ammonia, the State
Administration of Work Safety said in a statement yesterday. Xinhua
reported that the collapse buried several hundred people and caused a
leak of 80 tons of liquid ammonia. About 6,000 people were evacuated.
Dam Undamaged
No damage was reported at the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest
hydroelectric dam, located about 760 kilometers from the quake's
epicenter, Xinhua said.
The quake may fuel price increases in corn and soybeans after the
disaster threatened to disrupt domestic supplies, analysts said.
Food prices in China already were expected to rise by an average of 10
percent or more this year as demand outpaces farm production and
record global prices boost import costs, the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences said in an April 29 report.
Yesterday's quake, which hit at 2:28 p.m. and was initially given a
magnitude of 7.8, was the world's strongest since an 8.5- magnitude
temblor struck Indonesia in September, according to USGS.
It was the most powerful to hit China since a magnitude-8.6 quake
struck Tibet in 1950, killing 1,526 people. A 7.5-magnitude quake
killed 250,000 people in northeastern China's Tangshan in 1976.
At 10 kilometers below the surface, the earthquake was shallow,
``which means it released more destructive energy,'' Zhang Guomin, a
researcher at the China Seismology Bureau, was cited as saying by
Xinhua.
USGS defines an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more as ``major,'' and
one above 8 as ``great.''
There are 17 quakes measuring 7 to 7.9 annually worldwide on average,
USGS said on its Web site, with five occurring so far this year. On
average, there is one temblor annually measuring 8 or more.
To contact the reporters on this story: Dingmin Zhang in Beijing at
dzha...@bloomberg.net; Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo at
ashel...@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 13, 2008 10:27 EDT
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