Events Calendar
In This Section
Winds drive icebergs away from New Zealand
U.N. says El Nino likely to last until May
Suspect in Philippine massacre charged with murder
American student's defense in Italy: Not enough evidence
Iran warns of tough action against British sailors
Marines to be first wave in new Afghanistan plan
Dubai: World lacks understanding of debt crisis
Most Read Stories
Fred Martin Chevrolet will close
Plane crashes at Akron airport
Officials suspect Ponzi scheme at Fair Finance
Aunt Jemima cartoon rankles some in Cleveland
Dying man robbed in ER waiting room
Summit looks at new cigarette tax
Duffy's Grill serves up welcome reopening
Blogs:
Pets:
PAWS Pet of the Week
The Heldenfiles:
"Hurt Locker" Blu-ray/DVD Release Set
Patrick McManamon:
Bobby Bowden (finally) says goodbye
Akron Zips:
Football season recap
Tribe Matters:
Catcher Shoppach traded to Tampa Bay
Cleveland Browns:
Rubin takes over
Kent State Sports:
KSU Notes – November 29
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Z Update and More Minutes for Delonte?
Buckeye Blogging:
Buckeye Football – Present and Future
Varsity Letters:
Hoobler to visit Indiana this weekend
All Da King's Men:
The Myth Of The Clinton Surplus
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Barack W. Obama
Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (78) The CLASS Act and Its Costs
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
Car Chase:
What Automotive Thing Are You Thankful For?
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Dubai Bubble Bursting?????
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Jeanne inquires – what is the best place to see Amish country?
Sound Check:
Norah Jones to perform at U of A's E.J. Thomas Hall in March 2010
HRLite House:
Genetic Discrimination
Akron Gamer:
Find the best Cyber Monday game deals
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
