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Quake Brings Grim Repetition to China

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washingtonpost.com > World > Asia/Pacific
Quake Brings Grim Repetition to China
6.1-Magnitude Temblor Kills at Least 32, Damages or Destroys 250,000 Homes

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By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 1, 2008; Page A09

BEIJING, Sept. 1 -- It was a familiar scene: Rescue teams headed into an earthquake zone Sunday to help tens of thousands of frightened farmers deal with hundreds of aftershocks and a shortage of tents.

Less than a week after the close of the Olympic Games, which brought mostly good news to China's government, officials struggled with the aftermath of a 6.1-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 32 people and injured hundreds Saturday.

The official New China News Agency said Monday that more than 250,000 homes had collapsed or been destroyed. The news agency said it was unclear how many more people were buried in rubble near the epicenter of the quake, about 30 miles southeast of Panzhihua, a city in southern Sichuan province.

The temblor destroyed nearly 400 houses in Panzhihua and 1,000 in neighboring Liangshan, the China Earthquake Administration said on its Web site.

"All the houses in our village have nearly collapsed, and right now we are risking our lives to bring our belongings out of our homes," said Xiong Mei, a farmer from Nanhai village in Liangshan prefecture who spent the rainy night in the courtyard of her partially destroyed home.
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"In our village, there are 60 to 70 people who are seriously injured and staying in the playground of our elementary school," she said. "We don't have enough clothes or canvas to shelter ourselves, so we have to sew plastic bags together."

Xiong, 37, was near the epicenter of the massive May 12 Sichuan earthquake that killed nearly 70,000. On Sunday, there was only one tent assigned to her production unit in the village -- a way of organizing and managing rural residents by their jobs -- and it was not enough for the elderly and weak. "From yesterday to this afternoon, we've only eaten once. I am very frightened. The year of 2008 is a year full of disasters," Xiong said.

A man in the rescue supplies office of the Panzhihua Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau said the city needed several thousand more tents and possibly other supplies, such as food and clean water. "The biggest problem for us is a shortage of big tents and blankets. We have already distributed more than 2,000 tents," said the man, who gave only his surname, Cao. "We sent most of our people to the countryside to see if any people are still buried. The situation there is still unclear now."

Many Chinese think 2008 has already brought more than their fair share of bad luck. Crippling snowstorms struck Guangdong province during the Chinese New Year travel period, and many Chinese include the Tibet riots and protests against the Olympic torch relay in this year's negative news.

"There are so many disasters this year, and the people's mood is very low here," said Ju Guihua, 46, a nurse at a county hospital in Panzhihua that had admitted two quake survivors with broken legs. "The earthquakes are a serious and somber topic around here."

Xu Zhencong, 51, a teacher in Dalongtan town in Panzhihua, was riding a motorcycle home when the quake struck.

"I saw dust in the air from the collapsed houses. And just now, I felt two aftershocks," Xu said. "Today the government sent people to the village to check, but we only have four tents, so I have to buy rain clothes and set up a shelter by myself."

Messenger: Eleazar1234

Sent: 9/5/2008 12:10:55 PM

News Asia-Pacific
Pain lingers for quake families
By Melissa Chan in Wudu, Sichuan province

The Zhous attend to the grave of their son, killed in the May earthquake

While the eyes of the world are on Beijing, China's Olympics have brought little joy to survivors of May's deadly earthquake in Sichuan, especially parents who lost children. Three months on from the devastating quake, Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan revisited a family struggling to come to terms with their loss.

It is three months to the day since a powerful earthquake hit Sichuan province.

It killed more than 70,000 people, and left millions more homeless.

China's Olympics have brought little joy to the survivors, especially parents who lost children, as Melissa Chan reports.

Thousands of families lost their only child in the quake

When we first met the Zhaos three months ago, they were saying goodbye. Their son, Zhao Yi, died in the Sichuan earthquake - crushed under the weight of six floors of classrooms.

It was the third day after his burial, in the afternoon, and following local custom the Zhaos were burning their son's things for him to use in his afterlife. His backpack, his schoolbooks - pulled out with his body from the rubble - were burned. They also gave little Zhao Yi his soccer ball.

Many couples in the town Wudu have lost a child - and the adults have spent the summer adjusting to life simply as husband and wife - no longer parents. Much has changed - there is enough food and water now, and everyone has a tent to live in. But the remains of the Zhao's home are still littered around them, yet to be cleared away.

Mr Zhao though is not doing well. He has lost about 15 kilograms in weight. Not from lack of food, but simply from having no appetite. Back in May, the couple we met were in shock. They were doing what so many people in Sichuan province were doing: focusing on the basics and doing what needed to be done. That included burying their son.

Lonely

The couple say they face a lonely future without their son

But it also meant building a makeshift home, foraging amongst the wreckage to save what little they had left, and counting the amount of bottled drinking water they had in stock.

But now, the Zhaos have moved beyond the pressing day-to-day needs. They are no longer thinking of only the next day, but the next week, to the next few months. And they feel they face a lonely, hopeless future without their son.

They now battle the emotional and the psychological. Mr Zhao admits, he can only pair eating with alcohol. Otherwise, it is too hard to swallow. Whenever they sit down for a meal, Mr Zhao says, he still finds himself looking around for his son. He should be here.

Before the quake, the Zhaos ran a small medical clinic. It was only a few days ago that they managed to re-stock and finally open for patients.

Mr Zhao wants to run a bigger facility to help this broken community. But local officials will not approve his application, and he suspects they want a bribe he cannot afford to pay. He showed us a copy of his application, dated two months ago. He has had no word from anyone since.

The dream of opening up a medical clinic seems to be the only thing keeping Mr Zhao going. When that hope fades away, it will be hard to imagine what will motivate him to go on.

Price of silence

The Zhaos say they have been offered compensation - with one condition

At the moment, the Zhaos live off of about $90 a month. It is money from the government.

They do have an option to increase their income substantially. The local government has been offering all parents who lost a child a cash payment of 60,000 RMB, or about $8,800 - with one condition: to sign on the dotted line, and pledge not to bring charges or cause any problems surrounding the questionable construction of schools in the region.

Mr Zhao says he has been approached three or four times, but he is not going to sign. His son is priceless.

The Zhaos say they want very much to do something they are vague as to exactly what - but there is a sense their son could have survived if not for incompetence and poor decisions made by local officials.

But, Mr Zhao says, he feels there is nothing he can do. He finishes off his fifth bottle of beer.

Two tents away, a television set had been tuned in to the Olympics during our lunch conversation. And, as we finished our meal, a Chinese athlete had just won a gold medal.

The national anthem blared out. But there was no sense of celebration at our table. Just a terrible sense of disillusionment.

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