Sichuan, China News Archives

South Africa News.Net Saturday 31st May, 2008 Chinese soldiers and engineers have been working incessantly to dig a spillway from an earthquake-created lake that is threatening to burst its banks in the central ...

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, hugely popular at home for his visits to quake-hit Sichuan, has emerged as the 10th most popular politician on the Facebook social networking site.

Farmers plant rice next to their collapsed house in Mianzhu Town of Sichuan Province yesterday.

The Olympic torch relay in quake-hit Sichuan has been postponed until just before the Games in August, state media said on Saturday, as local authorities focused on recovery efforts.

The slowdown, if sustained, will begin to separate winners from losers among the 46 brands competing for market share.

A Chinese earthquake survivor crushes the debris of his home with a sledge hammer to remove the steel bars from the cement in Hanwang Sunday, May 25, 2008.

Quake-affected people carry relief materials in Leigu Township of the quake-stricken Beichuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, yesterday.

A Chinese man carries a mattress he removed from a destroyed apartment in Yingxiu in Wenchuan County of southwest China's Sichuan province Tuesday, May 27, 2008.

The earthquake that devastated Sichuan province on May 12 has caused losses totaling 149 million yuan for major domestic home appliance maker Sichuan Changhong Electric Co, a company announcement to the ...

China's devastated Sichuan region can expect to be rocked by aftershocks for weeks and months, possibly years, but the power of the aftershocks, one destroyed some 420,000 houses, will gradually diminish, say ...

Psychiatrist Wang Jian is used to conducting consultations with patients in a single, quiet room, where there are paintings on the wall and comfortable couches to sit on.

Defense Ministry officials were busy Thursday sorting out the logistics of airlifting relief supplies to China aboard three C-130 transport planes of the Air Self-Defense Force for victims of the May 12 ...

In Tangjiashan, diversion efforts have faced heavy rain for the first time since emergency work began.

Heavy rain and a chemical fire hampered urgent recovery efforts Thursday in an earthquake-shattered town threatened by a rising lake.

Fears are growing that not all funds given for China's earthquake survivors will reach those in need.

An aerial photo taken on May 28, 2008 shows the Tangjiashan earthquake-induced lake near Beichuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Rows of body bags were laid out along streets for all to see. Sobbing parents furious about shoddily built schools that collapsed and killed thousands of children were able to speak freely. Military helicopters carried reporters to tour the disaster zone.

The earthquake that flattened a wide swath of central Sichuan province May 12 has been a historic event for journalism in China. Never before have the nation's leaders allowed foreign reporters so much freedom to cover a major disaster.

Chinese leaders haven't fully explained the new openness, and periods of thaw can be brief here. Only time will tell if it is a real policy shift _ a bold break from the Communist Party's traditional tight control on the release of news, particularly bad news.

Students of the former Hejia Middle School, which was destroyed in the earthquake in Chongzhou City, Sichuan Province, react at a ceremony of class reopening at a school established with charitable fund ...

Amid race to drain Chinese quake lake, emergency plans proceed Special report: Reconstruction After Earthquake An aerial photo taken on May 28, 2008 shows the Tangjiashan earthquake-induced lake near Beichuan ...

The strongest aftershock since a May 12 earthquake devastated parts of Sichuan province struck the area yesterday afternoon, killing one person, injuring more than 200 and spreading panic through a region just ...

New Delhi, May 27: India will Wednesday send 28 tonnes of relief material to earthquake-hit China.

The teahouses are nearly empty, travel agents sit beside silent telephones and shopkeepers pass the day watching the continuing agony of their countrymen on television.

An earthquake survivor, left, receives counseling from a psychologist at the Jiuzhou stadium, where homeless survivors are being housed, in Mianyang, in China's southwest Sichuan province, Thursday, May 22, ...

Mianyang , May 27 'Granny Du, we've found granny Du!' Teachers and parents searching the ruins for life at the Nanba Primary School rushed to the scene when they heard the yell.

People wishing to adopt quake orphans should remain patient while the authorities make every possible effort to reunite children separated from their parents, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said yesterday.

China's top legislator Wu Bangguo Monday visited and expressed sympathy and solicitude for people injured in the deadly May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province.

The deadly earthquake that jolted southwest China's Sichuan Province on May 12 has destroyed the homes of giant pandas and left the bears in dire need of their favorite food, bamboo.

MIANYANG, China -- A powerful aftershock hit Sichuan province today, killing at least two people and heightening fears of landslides and flooding, even as more survivors of the May 12 earthquake sought to trek ...

Chinese officials announced Monday that the country's strict one-child policy will make some exceptions for certain families affected by the devastating earthquake two weeks ago.

Families with a child who was killed, severely injured or disabled in the quake can obtain a certificate to have another child, the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in the capital of hard-hit Sichuan province said.

The May 12 quake was particularly painful to many Chinese because it killed so many only children. The destruction of almost 7,000 classrooms during a school day left China heartbroken, with newspaper photos focusing on piles of dusty bookbags and small hands emerging from the debris.

Rifka bounded into the rubble of the Hanwang Town People's Hospital panting and barking.

CHINA will build 1.5 million make-shift houses in the quake-stricken Sichuan Province, which are expected to endure at least three years, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Jiang Weixin said ...

Gao Ping's arms are still bruised and scratched from scrambling over boulder-strewn roads and dodging rain-slick landslides.

The 43-year-old migrant worker wasn't here when the earthquake struck on May 12. Instead, he is one of millions who had left their hometowns for better jobs in their country's white-hot economy, only to race back on a wrenching journey when disaster laid waste to their homes and families.

The news reached Gao at the auto parts factory where he works, 1,000 miles from his hometown in Sichuan province, in a frantic call from his mother saying his younger brother was missing.

Ten days after the devastating earthquake in southwest China, six days after he returned to Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao was back on the front lines of quake relief.

Premier encourages surviving students in quake disaster zone Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao salutes with the students to pay tribute to the quake victims during his visit to the makeshift tent school at Jiuzhou ...

More foreign help arrived in China on Sunday as forecasts of heavy rain threatened to pour more misery on survivors of the devastating earthquake that killed at least 60,000 people.

Chinese environment authorities say they have found fifty hazardous sources of radiation since this month's earthquake.

The supply of food and other goods in Sichuan province is stable now and business is expected to recover soon, the commerce minister said yesterday.

As hope fades for the missing, shelter has become a top concern for earthquake survivors in the southwestern Sichuan Province, especially as the warm, rainy season approaches and the insect population surges.

BEIJING : China's glasnost In the aftermath of the great Sichuan earthquake, we've seen a hopeful glimpse of China's future: a more open and self-confident nation, and maybe - just maybe - the birth of ...

Heifer International says its anti-poverty projects in western China have been devastated by the May 12th earthquake in that country.

A state news agency says U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has arrived in China to visit earthquake relief efforts.

The Xinhua News Agency says Ban arrived in the southwestern city of Chengdu, capital of quake-hit Sichuan province. He was due to travel later Saturday to a town nearer the epicenter of the May 12 quake, which killed more than 55,000 people.

Ban spent the past two days in Myanmar, visiting areas devastated by a cyclone and meeting with top leaders in hopes of opening the door to more foreign aid for millions of needy.

Water resources officials working in China's quake-stricken areas said yesterday they have made plans to repair damage to a river that threatens to burst.

Sixty-five cultural relics under state protection and 119 under provincial protection in Sichuan province have been severely damaged as a result of last Monday's earthquake, the State Administration of Cultural ...

Bricks fall from a deserted catholic seminary as an earthquake strikes during a wedding photo shoot in Pengzhou in southwest China's Sichuan province Monday May 12, 2008.

Chinese policemen wearing protective suits walk through the earthquake hit town of Beichuan, in China's southwest Sichuan province Thursday May 22, 2008.

Last week's deadly earthquake in China has created more than 4,000 orphans, a Chinese official said.

But Chen Kefu, the deputy director for civil affairs in hard-hit Sichuan province, warned at a news conference Wednesday that it will take time to determine the real number of parentless children because of the large number of people still missing and displaced.

The May 12 quake has killed more than 41,000 people and left more than 5 million homeless.

Thousands of Chinese have called government offices and posted their pleas online to adopt an orphan from the quake.

The Associated Press 4 comments A group of soldiers clean a road from pieces of broken glasses next to collapsed buildings following last week's earthquake in Hanwang town in China's southwest Sichuan province.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made his second trip to the quake-battered zone on Thursday afternoon to supervise over disaster relief work.

CHENGDU, China : When the earth finally stopped bucking, only one building was left standing in the vicinity of the Yinxing Township Central Primary School, and that was the school itself.

China has sent emergency bamboo-shoot rations to pandas at a reserve in the Sichuan earthquake zone because no one there is collecting it for them, state media said on Thursday.

Chinese leaders moved to contain the political aftershocks of last week's deadly earthquake, promising a big rebuilding fund and trying to keep despair from turning to anger in the disaster zone.

A group of B.C. students caught up in a devastating earthquake in China have been evacuated from the area over fears of further quakes.

Young Chinese children play games outdoors at a temporary camp set up for those affected by last week's earthquake in Chengdu, southwestern China's Sichuan province, Tuesday, May 20, 2008.

The State Grid Corporation of China said that 96 of the 106 major power users in Sichuan Province, which lost power in the May 12 earthquake, had their power back on Tuesday.

Heavy rain forecast for southwest China have threatened to disrupt relief efforts and raise the risk of reservoir breaches in earthquake-stricken areas, where tents have become the most-wanted item.

The death toll in China's devastating earthquake topped 40,000 Tuesday as the country entered a third day of national mourning and struggled to shelter more than 5 million people left homeless.

People should guard against Internet fraud while donating for the quake victims, Pang Chenmin, an official of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, warned yesterday.

JIM YARDLEY and DAVID BARBOZA Duan Hanbing, right, helped move a survivor of last week's earthquake to a hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan.

Yuan Jiang, an earthquake survivor who had trapped under the rubbles at a collapsed building for 72 hours in Beichuan, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Mianyang, Sichuan province, China, Tuesday, May ...

Fresh video has emerged showing the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck Sichuan, China on 12 May 2008.

As flags throughout the country fly at half-mast in a three-day national mourning period that started Monday, images of those who died in the disaster continue to touch citizens' hearts.

China's largest grief counseling operation for survivors of a natural disaster is in full swing, a week after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the southwestern Sichuan Province.

Much-needed medicines, vaccines and medical supplies have begun entering disaster-ravaged areas of Myanmar and China, donated by U.S. and foreign drugmakers that also are giving millions of dollars in aid.

A Child holds a bowl of noodles she received at a earthquake refugees camp in Anxian, 20km from Beichuan, Southwestern Sichuan province, China, Monday, May 19, 2008.

CHENGDU, China : Panic erupted here in the Sichuan provincial capital and at least one other Sichuan city on Monday after provincial television issued a warning of the possibility of a severe aftershock of as ...

The death toll from last week's massive earthquake in China rose to at least 34,073 with another 245,109 people hurt, Chinese government officials said Monday, as the country began three days of national ... via CNN

“Continuing surveillance is extremely important”

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, also member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, consoles a victim in Pingtong Township of Pingwu County, ... via Xinhuanet

“It was 50-years-old and there are thousands and thousands of people who worked there. It involved whole families and had a major impact on their lives”

Jia waves as he arrives with actresses Joan Chen and Zhao Tao for the screening of his film 24 City at the 61st Cannes International Film Festival PARIS: Award-winning director Jia Zhangke took his vision of ... via Gulf Times

“The community are collecting millions of Hong Kong dollars to help out. On almost every street there were people with collecting cans. They are mobilising phenomenal amounts of money.”

A British rescue team who travelled to earthquake-hit China returned home "frustrated and disappointed" after failing to secure visas to stay and help with the emergency operation. via IcNorthWales

“The focus of our work will gradually shift to rural areas impacted by Monday's quake, ”

The death toll from the earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan Province has risen to 28,881 nationwide as of 2 p.m. Saturday, while 198,347 people were injured, according to the Information Office of the State ... via VietNamNet

“To have been there, in the whole area, just two days prior to - it really brought it home to figure that I was just so close, timewise, to being close to the epicenter”

"My heart goes out to all the people who are still there," said John Cafasso, an engineer for Pratt & Whitney in North Berwick, Maine, who was working in Chengdu, China, on Monday when the quake hit. via The Citizen

“The U.S. is standing by for any other requests, and if those requests are made, they will be handled though the interagency process and then we will respond as accordingly”

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Supplies were loaded onto a China-bound C-17 yesterday at Hickam Air Force Base in advance of a flight scheduled for this morning. via Honolulu Star-Bulletin

“This is a tragedy. It will set back the development of this whole area by five years.”

As strange as it sounds, the streets of Chengdu are normal today. This city barely 40 miles from devastated schools and apartments and hospitals is operating virtually as it was before the earthquake struck this patch of southwest China. Stores are open, tire shops are changing tires, the computer market is busy.

It's not for lack of sympathy for neighbors hit harder. Indeed, ordinary Chinese with no direct connection to the quake have poured out cash and donated blood and pledges of support. Rather, the remarkable thing about the two worlds unfolding in China this week is how they exist in parallel, a case study in a nation divided between its past and its present. Read more

“I've called her countless times, but there's no answer. Now the phone is dead”

Piles of broken concrete rise seven stories high, and a few buildings stand askew, knocked at odd angles. People cry out the names of missing relatives and rescue workers shout, 'Is anyone there? Is anyone there?'

On Friday, amid the little that is left of the town of Beichuan, the answers came in faint taps on concrete or muffled cries.

In response to one such muffled call, five volunteers dug with their hands and shovels for more than four hours, freeing a middle-aged woman from a crumpled apartment building. Read more

“Damage to these plants could potentially be a serious issue for the Chinese government”

American experts are monitoring nuclear facilities in China's earthquake zone, officials said Friday, after France's nuclear watchdog reported that some had suffered minor damage.

The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety said Chinese authorities 'reacted well' to the quake and immediately shut down nuclear sites for inspection.

Thierry Charles, the group's director of plant safety, said China's nuclear safety agency, NNSA, had reported no leaks of radioactivity since the quake. Read more

“One little boy in the first grade was really brave. His name was Zhou Yuyan”

By WILLIAM FOREMAN Saturday, May 17, 2008 As Huang Siyu ran down the stairs of her school after the powerful earthquake, the building collapsed and her teacher was killed. via WQXI-AM Atlanta

Head of Russian rescue team communicates with Chinese rescuers on information of the quake-hit region at an airport in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 16, 2008. via Xinhuanet

“It seems like the information coming out of China right now is almost unprecedented, as far as ... information on victims and things”

A group of B.C. students and their professor who found themselves near the epicentre of this week's devastating earthquake in China have decided to stay and lend a hand, despite the danger and chaos. via CBC

“You should be unafraid of fatigue and work around the clock, making great efforts to keep losses to a minimum.”

Chinese President Hu Jintao Friday went to Beichuan County of Mianyang City to visit people affected by the southwest China earthquake, encouraging them to be confident in overcoming hardships caused by the ... via People's Daily Online

“So when I hear a school has collapsed, I point the finger at politics.”

A powerful aftershock knocked out roads and communications in some of the most quake-ravaged parts of central China on Friday, as emergency crews rescued more than 30 people who had survived up to 100 improbable hours trapped in the ruins.

With the official death toll at more than 22,000, an air force unit reached Yinchanggou, a scenic spot in the mountains north of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, finding landslides had swept away rustic small hotels.

"There are several hundred hotels, including farmer homestays, probably 800 in all. They are all rubble now," Cai Weisu, an official with an air force unit from the Chengdu Military Region, told Sichuan Television. Most of the dead are tourists, he said, but did not identify whether they were foreign or Chinese. Read more

“I'm 37 years old and my child was 13. If we were to do it again, I'd be 50 when this stage comes along”

A woman grieves on the grave of her child who was killed in Monday's earthquake at a school in Wufu. via Times-Transcript

The H.J. Heinz Co. says it's giving $350,000 in cash and in-kind services to earthquake relief efforts in China. via The York Daily Record

“We understand the concerns of the Taiwan compatriots toward the quake victims”

The chartered freight flight of the Taiwan-based China Airlines has arrived at Chengdu loaded with relief materials to quake-hit regions in Sichuan. via Xinhuanet

“We knew we weren't alone and that someone would help.”

A rescuer gestures as they save a pregnant woman from a damaged building in the earthquake-affected Dujiangyan of southwest China's Sichuan province Wednesday, May 14, 2008.