Events Calendar
In This Section
BRITAIN Airline workers to strik...
U.S. official in Kabul says delays are possible
Iran says U.S. hikers face trial
Gore at climate talks: Polar ice may go by 2014
Clinton: Iran charges on U.S. hikers unfounded
Israel eases restrictions on Palestinians for holiday season
Italy's Berlusconi in pain, will remain hospitalized after attack
U.S. military warned Iraq of possible Baghdad blasts
Most Read Stories
Tiger Woods debate sparks beating
Tiger Woods loses first major sponsor
Police say Ohio man zapped by stun gun dies
Man found dead near Rittman nursing home
Woman arrested in grits attack on boyfriend
Mom of Steelers player, ex-Coventry High star charged with assault in Akron VFW melee
Police say Akron man struggled for officer's gun, got Tasered
LeBron throws bolts to silence Thunder
Two homicides in Stark; one victim's hand cut off
Blogs:
Pets:
Is it better to walk a human or to walk a dog?
The Heldenfiles:
NBC Program Plans
Patrick McManamon:
Good grief
Akron Zips:
Akron loses national championship in shootout
Tribe Matters:
Tribe re-signs Reyes, Miller
Cleveland Browns:
Mangini doesn't endorse Massaquoi as a No. 1
Kent State Sports:
Committee begins search for KSU athletic director
Cleveland Cavaliers:
The Traveling Music Post: The Show Tunes Version
Buckeye Blogging:
Bucks Meet Ducks for Rose Bowl Crown
Varsity Letters:
Cincinnati player visited Kent State
All Da King's Men:
Melting Arctic Ice
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Master De-baters
Akron Law Café:
Atheist Elected in North Carolina, Presenting an Easy Religious Freedom Case
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
Car Chase:
The AM Gizmo—aPerfect Gift for Collector Car Drivers
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Loan Modification – You Qualify!
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Miranda asks about a place sacred to the Indians where magnetic fields converge.
Sound Check:
On the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
Genetic Discrimination
Akron Gamer:
'Halo Reach' trailer
Search for earthquake survivors involves digging by hand. Troops head to dam
By Audra Ang
Associated Press
Published on Thursday, May 15, 2008
HANWANG, CHINA: Soldiers rushed to shore up a dam cracked by this week's powerful earthquake, and rescuers came by helicopter and ship Wednesday into the isolated epicenter but still were forced to dig for survivors with their bare hands.
Nearly 26,000 people remained buried in collapsed buildings from Monday's magnitude 7.9 earthquake, and the death toll of almost 15,000 was expected to climb as relief operations spread into the mountains of Sichuan province. The quake triggered landslides that blocked roads to hardest-hit areas.
Even as the rescue effort seemed to gather momentum — speeded by clearing weather after two days of rain — caring for tens of thousands of people made homeless across the disaster zone have stretched thin the government's resources.
Homeless victims begged for aid on roadsides, and people settled in for a third night in a growing sprawl of refugee camps littered with garbage. In Hanwang, a town in one of the hardest-hit counties, survivors stood hoping for handouts from cars, jostling with each other to reach to one vehicle where a passenger passed bottled water out the window.
''I'm numb,'' said Zhao Xiaoli, a 25-year-old nurse working at a makeshift triage center in a tire factory driveway. ''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.''
Damage to the two-year-old Zipingpu Dam threatened downstream communities still digging out from the quake. Some 2,000 soldiers were sent to the dam, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Four-inch cracks scarred the top of the dam, and landslides had poured down the surrounding hills, the business news magazine Caijing said on its Web site in a report from the scene.
Although the government pronounced the dam safe late Tuesday after an inspection, Caijing said its waters were being emptied to relieve pressure. The Ministry of Water Resources issued a notice to check reservoirs nationwide, while the economic planning agency said nearly 400 dams, most of them small, were damaged by the quake.
Hundreds of rivers snake through the mountainous Tibetan plateau before descending into the fertile Sichuan basin where they provide critical irrigation.
The activist group International Rivers Network was involved in a campaign in 2001 and 2002 to protest funding for the Zipingpu Dam because of its proximity to a fault line, said Aviva Imhoff, the group's campaigns director.
Imhoff said the group obtained transcripts of a 2000 internal government meeting in which seismologists warned officials of the dangers of constructing the dam and the potential for it to be damaged in an earthquake, Imhoff said.
The official death toll rose Wednesday to 14,866, and in Sichuan province another 25,788 people were buried and 1,405 were missing, provincial vice governor Li Chengyun said, according to Xinhua.
An already massive military operation gathered pace with close to 100,000 soldiers and police mobilized. After two days of rain that prevented relief flights, People's Liberation Army helicopters flew 90 sorties to the epicenter in Wenchuan county and other areas to drop food, medicine and tents and ferry out 156 injured people, Xinhua reported.
The scale of the devastation is raising questions about the quality of China's recent construction boom. Some builders cut corners, especially in areas largely populated by the very young and old.
HANWANG, CHINA: Soldiers rushed to shore up a dam cracked by this week's powerful earthquake, and rescuers came by helicopter and ship Wednesday into the isolated epicenter but still were forced to dig for survivors with their bare hands.
Get the full article here.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
