Bloomberg, By Aaron Sheldrick & Eugene Tang, May 12

China was hit by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake near the central city of Chengdu, leaving at least five people dead and causing buildings to shake in Beijing, more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away.

The quake struck 90 kilometers west-northwest of Chengdu at 2:28 p.m. local time, at a depth of 10 kilometers, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. A magnitude-6 quake struck the area about 15 minutes later. Chengdu is the provincial capital of Sichuan and has a population of about 11 million.

Four students were killed and at least 100 were injured when two schools collapsed in Liangping county of Chongqing municipality, adjacent to Sichuan, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Chongqing is about 350 kilometers from the epicenter and has a population of about 30 million. One person died in Sichuan province.

Walls were cracked in some buildings in Chengdu, Xinhua said. There wasn't any major damage in the city, the agency said. Troops were being sent to Wenchuan, a city of 111,800 people and one of the closest population centers to the quake, Xinhua said.

The Times Of London, By Jane Macartney, May 12

Tower blocks from Beijing to Bangkok rocked and swayed today as an earthquake shook a swath of Asia, with a magnitude of 7.8 in south west China.

Buildings had collapsed in the town of Wenchuan, but there was no immediate word on casualties. Communications to the town appeared to have been severed, with calls failing to connect to both fixed line and mobile telephones.

Premier Wen Jiabao left Beijing and tried to reach the epicentre after the tremor rocked the region at 0628 GMT at a depth of 18 miles. The decision to send such a senior leader hinted that officials may fear a possible high casualty toll from the earthquake near a region with a large Tibetan population that has seen anti-Chinese unrest in recent weeks.

Reports of deaths were beginning to trickle in. Four children died in a suburb of southwestern Chongqing city when the earthquake toppled two primary schools. More than 100 children were injured.

Troops have already been sent to help with disaster relief work in Wenchuan, which has about 111,000 people in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Tian Yixiang, who works for the emergency office of the People’s Liberation Army, said the soldiers would assist the local government there. Wenchuan is best-known as the home of the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and breeding base for the endangered giant panda. Calls to the base failed to connect.

The government in Aba prefecture of Sichuan province said buildings had collapsed and many were cracked. Mountain roads had been damaged.

The earthquake was felt as far away as Vietnam and Thailand, startling office workers in high-rise buildings. There were no reports of damage. In Beijing, office workers rushed in panic out of towers in the capital’s financial district.

CNN, May 12

BEIJING, China -- A major earthquake has buried about 900 children in southwest China, the country's official news agency Xinhua reported Monday.

The report did not say if the buried students were believed to still be alive.

Xinhua reported earlier that four students were killed and 100 hurt when two primary schools buildings collapsed in the Chongqing municipality, about 215 miles (345 km) southeast of the epicenter.

Another person was killed when a water tower fell in the city of Mianyang, the news agency reported.

The strongest of the quakes registered a magnitude of 7.8, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

[...]

Bonnie Thie, the country director the Peace Corps, was on a university campus in Chengdu about 60 miles from the epicenter, in the eastern part of China's Sichuan province, when the first quake hit.

"You could see the ground shaking," Thie told CNN.

The shaking "went on for what seemed like a very long time," she said.

"This is a very dangerous earthquake," said Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake has the potential to cause major damage because of its strength and proximity to major population centers, he said. In addition, the earthquake was relatively shallow, Presgrave said, and those kinds of quakes tend to do more damage near the epicenter than deeper ones.

[...]

At least six more earthquakes -- measuring between 4.0 and 6.0 magnitudes -- happened nearby over the three hours after the initial quake at at 2:28 p.m. local time (0728 GMT, 0228 ET), the USGS reported.

A spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Committee said no Olympic venues were affected by the earthquake. The massive Three Gorges Dam -- roughly 400 miles east of the epicenter -- was not damaged, a spokesman said.

The earthquake was also felt in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, and as far away as Hanoi, Vietnam, and Bangkok, Thailand, according to the Hong Kong-based Mandarin-language channel Phoenix TV.

CNN, May 12

BEIJING -- More than 7,600 people have been killed by Monday's powerful earthquake in just one affected region of central China, the Chinese government said.

State-run news agency Xinhua said the official toll had risen to 7,651 in Sichuan Province.

In addition, at least 48 people were killed in the northwest Gansu Province, Xinhua said.

Authorities had earlier said they believed about 10,000 people were injured in Beichuan County in the northeastern part of the province.

The Sichuan provincial disaster relief headquarters said 80 percent of the buildings collapsed in the Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County after the 7.8-magnitude quake, Xinhua reported.

May 13 (Bloomberg) -- China is deploying about 50,000 soldiers to Sichuan province after the nation's strongest earthquake in 58 years killed almost 10,000 people and buried buildings in landslides.

``The death toll and damage are more serious than we expected and we need more people here to help,'' Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said early today at disaster relief headquarters in Dujiangyan, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, in comments broadcast on state television.

The magnitude-7.9 earthquake struck at 2:28 p.m. local time yesterday, 90 kilometers west-northwest of the central city of Chengdu, followed by aftershocks including a magnitude-6 quake 15 minutes later, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Chengdu, home to 11 million people, is the capital of Sichuan, site of 40 percent of China's gas deposits and its largest panda reserve.

Sichuan produced about 22 percent of the nation's natural gas output in 2006, according to China National Petroleum Corp. and BP Plc's annual energy report.

The quake, 10 kilometers below the surface, was shallow, ``which means it released more destructive energy,'' Zhang Guomin, a researcher at the China Seismology Bureau, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency. ``We have to guard against mudslides and collapsing buildings.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aFVNBQgK2ATI&refer=asia

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

BBC

The most powerful earthquake to hit China in 30 years has killed at least 10,000 people in south-western Sichuan province, with thousands more trapped.

Chinese state media said that 10,000 people were thought to be buried in one town alone near the epicentre of the earthquake in Wenchuan County.

A team of 1,300 troops and medics has now reached Wenchuan, which was largely cut off by the quake.

Premier Wen Jiabao has urged rescuers to work as hard as they can.

But rescue efforts are being hampered by heavy rain and badly damaged roads.

Residents sit near collapsed buildings in Mianzhu on 13 May 2008

Latest from Dujiangyan
In pictures: China earthquake

"People's lives and property safety are the top priorities and many people are still trapped in debris," Xinhua news agency quoted Mr Wen as saying in the disaster relief headquarters, north-west of Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu.

"We must treasure every second and do our utmost to save survivors."

China has deployed 50,000 troops to help with relief efforts, 16,000 of whom are already in the area.

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CNN, May 13

Death toll in Sichuan province alone exceeds 12,000.

JIANG YOU, China -- More than 18,000 people are reported buried under rubble in just one earthquake-hit city of China as teams of rescuers battle through power cuts, mudslides and heavy rain in desperate efforts to reach them.

Chinese state media, Xinhua News Agency, reported Tuesday that 18,645 people are under rubble in the city of Mianyang, which neighbors the epicenter of the earthquake.

It also reports that 3,629 people have died in the city.

The death toll has now exceeded 12,000 in Sichuan province alone, The Associated Press reports.

The government had earlier announced a death toll from Monday's quake of 11,921 for Sichuan and the surrounding provinces and the city of Chongqing.

A string of nearly 30 seismic aftershock jolts hit the province in the first 24 hours following Monday's quake and slowing the progress of 1,300-strong rescue teams. All of those quakes were magnitude 4.0 and above.

Distress turns to anger at Chinese soldiers and officials over the response to the huge earthquake.

The Guardian, Tania Branigan, May 13

Dujiangyan - Tenderly, she eased the clean fleece over her little boy's hand and up around his plump shoulder. He didn't look alarmed or frightened, but dirt and blood were caked on his forehead. She touched his hair and then they pulled up the zipper on the body bag and carried him away.

Only her husband marked her howls. The whole street was seething with misery and anger. She had seen her son, at least; most of the children still lay in the rubble of Xinjian elementary school.

Four hundred and fifty pupils, aged between just six and 12, were here when the quake hit yesterday at 2.28pm. A fortunate few were pulled out within hours by anxious parents scrabbling at the wreckage with bare hands. A handful more were saved overnight, after troops arrived to take over the rescue effort. Doctors were unsure how many had been rushed to hospital - perhaps 15, perhaps 50. What was certain was that hundreds more remained trapped and that hope was ebbing by the moment.

"There's a slight chance they could save a few more now; probably not very
many," said a white-coated doctor.

14 May 2008 13:20:43 GMT
Source: Reuters

* Death toll nearly 15,000, expected to rise

* 25,000 still buried in rubble

* 50,000 troops sent as search for survivors quickens

* Warnings of calamities from blocked rivers, strained dams

* Corruption watchdog vows to punish officials seen shirking rescue work

* Cost could reach $20 bln, says disaster modelling firm

(Writes through)

By Emma Graham-Harrison

DUJIANGYAN, China, May 14 (Reuters) - The death toll from China's deadliest earthquake in decades climbed to nearly 15,000 on Wednesday, as officials warned of calamities downstream from broken rivers and dams strained to bursting point.

Tens of thousands of troops, firefighters and civilians raced to save more than 25,000 people buried across a wide swathe of southwest Sichuan province under collapsed schools, factories and hospitals after Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake.

The official death toll climbed to 14,866, as rescuers pulled at tangled chunks of buildings for signs of life.

The government sent 50,000 troops to dig for victims.

Amid the overwhelming gloom, there were also moments of joy.

In Mianzhu, where thousands have already been confirmed dead, about 500 people were pulled out alive from crushed buildings.

Rescuers in Hanwang, a village in Mianzhu, sustained a girl with food and water as they struggled to free her from the ruins of a school.

A woman eight-months pregnant and her mother, trapped under an apartment building in Dujiangyan, were freed by firefighters.

"We are very happy. We have been standing here shouting for two days," said Pan Jianjun, a relative. "But there are still three more people in there making sounds."

But television showed whole villages wiped out across the poor, mountainous region suggesting searchers would find many more bodies than survivors among the toppled buildings.

BLOCKED RIVERS, DAMAGED DAMS

Officials have also warned of dangers from increased strain on local dams as well as mudslides on brittle hillsides where rain has been forecast over the next few days.

Two hydropower stations in Maoxian county, where 7,000 residents and tourists remain stranded near the epicentre, were "seriously damaged". Authorities warned that dams could burst.

Landslides had blocked the flow of two rivers in northern Qingchuan county, forming a huge lake in a region where 1,000 have already died and 700 are buried, Xinhua said.

"The rising water could cause the mountains to collapse. We desperately need geological experts to carry out tests and fix a rescue plan," Xinhua quoted Li Hao, the county's Communist Party chief, as saying.

The quake had also stopped a river in the stricken Mianzhu region, prompting officials to evacuate residents and drain dams, downstream, the agency said.

Underscoring the urgency of relief efforts, the Communist Party's top discipline watchdog vowed to punish officials for any dereliction of duty.

Pictures from Beichuan, which rescuers have struggled to reach, showed near total devastation. Survivors lay alongside the dead in the open air, surrounded by rubble as state TV showed dramatic footage of soldiers parachuting in to help.

more

The Independent

By Audra Ang, AP
Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Thousands of troops are tonight fighting to plug dangerous cracks in a dam above an earthquake-hit Chinese town.

Zipingpu Reservoir is upstream from Dujiangyan which was near the epicentre of the 7.9-magnitude quake.

China's top economic planning body said today that the earthquake had damaged 391 dams. It said two of the dams were large and 28 were medium-sized.

The official Xinhua news agency said the ministry had set up an emergency command centre at the dam.

The death toll from the quake may already by more than 50,000.

Official figures put it at nearly 15,000 with 26,000 still buried in rubble and 14,000 missing in Sichuan province alone.

Sichuan had other major dam projects, including the massive Three Gorges dam, the world's largest about 350 miles to the east of the epicentre, but officials said it escaped undamaged.

He Biao, the director of the Aba Disaster Relief headquarters in northern Sichuan, said there were also concerns over dams closer to the epicentre.

"Currently, the most dangerous problems are several reservoirs near Wenchuan," he said.

"There are already serious problems with the Tulong Reservoir on the Min River. It may collapse. If that happens, it would affect several power plants below and be extremely dangerous," he said.

Elsewhere as help began to arrive in some of the hardest-to-reach areas, some victims trapped for more than two days under collapsed buildings were still being pulled out alive.

But the enormous scale of the devastation meant that resources were stretched thin, and makeshift aid stations and refugee centers were springing up over a disaster area the size of Belgium.

Xinhua said rescuers who walked into the city of Yingxiu in Wenchuan county, the epicentre the quake, found it "much worse than expected."

Confusion remained over the official figures. It was not clear if the death toll included the 7,700 reported dead in Yingxiu and whether the figures applied to only Sichuan province or included other areas where the quake struck.

The toll was expected to rise further once rescuers reach other towns in Wenchuan that remain cut off from the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu more than two days after the quake.

Roads leading to Wenchuan from all directions were still being cleared of debris.

At a middle school Sichuan province's Qingchuan county where students were taking a noon nap when the quake demolished a three-story building, 178 children were confirmed dead in the rubble and another 23 remained missing..

In the Beichuan region, a three-year-old girl who was trapped for more than 40 hours under the bodies of her parents was pulled to safety, Xinhua said.

Rescuers found Song Xinyi yesterday, but were unable to extricate her immediately due to fears the debris above her would collapse. She was fed and shielded from the rain until rescuers extricated her from the rubble.

Premier Wen Jiabao toured the disaster area in an attempt at reassuring the public about the government's response and to show the world that the country is ready to host the Beijing Olympics in August.

Today's leg of the Olympic torch relay in the south-eastern city of Ruijin began with a minute of silence.

more

http://cryptome.org/cn-quake3/cn-quake3.htm

* Peter Goff, Zipingpu Dam in Sichuan and Tania Branigan in Hanwang
* The Guardian,
* Thursday May 15 2008

Link to this video
Survivors of the Chinese earthquake plead for help in one of the worst affected areas

Thousands of Chinese troops fought to avert further disasters last night after "extremely dangerous" cracks appeared in a massive dam, and hydropower stations were said to be badly damaged, after Monday's earthquake. As the official death toll rose to almost 15,000 - with another 26,000 still buried and 1,400 missing in Sichuan province alone - the state media warned that the city of Dujiangyan and much of the Chengdu plain would be swamped, if the Zipingpu hydropower dam burst.

As night fell, the government said the structure was safe, but officials warned that two hydropower stations in Maoxian county, near the quake's epicentre, were seriously damaged.

Landslides had blocked the flow of two rivers in northern Qingchuan county, forming a huge lake in a region where 1,000 have already died and 700 are buried, Xinhua said. "The rising water could cause mountains to collapse. We desperately need geological experts to carry out tests and fix a rescue plan," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the county's communist party chief, Li Hao, as saying.

One hundred thousand troops and police have poured into a disaster area the size of Belgium, with thousands of volunteers searching rubble, feeding the hungry and ferrying the injured to safety.

There were moments of joy as survivors trapped for more than two days under collapsed buildings were pulled out alive. A woman eight months pregnant was pulled to safety after spending 50 hours trapped in rubble. And hundreds of troops finally reached Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the quake, after hiking for tens of miles across mountainous terrain. Heavy rain had halted efforts to parachute in troops.

Government officials warned that they had found the situation "much worse than expected", Xinhua said. Rescuers who reached Yingxiu found only 2,300 survivors in the town of about 10,000, with another 1,000 badly hurt. Other nearby towns remain cut off.

"The Communist Party central committee has not forgotten this place," the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, pledged after flying by helicopter to Wenchuan, adding that some 50 injured people had been airlifted out. State television showed him crawling into collapsed buildings to urge survivors to hang on.

Xinhua reported that the airforce had dropped 9.1 tonnes of medicine, quilts and radios to the area and would soon deliver further aid. The paramilitary police said Wenchuan needed 35 tonnes of food a day, as well as 12,000 tents for the homeless.

Workers used dynamite to try to clear a winding access road which ran past the Zipingpu dam, littered with boulders and debris from the quake. The explosions prompted fears of more landslides, as did a forecast for further rain.

"The locals here have had it really hard," said a soldier, Dong Jianguo. "Things have been so bad, so terrible, and there's still so much danger around."

Xinhua warned that Beichuan, another cut-off mountainous area, required 50,000 tents, 200,000 blankets, 300,000 coats, drinking water and medicine.

Pictures showed streets where not a single building stood. Survivors lay dazed on the ground next to the dead.

more

AP, May 15

LUOSHUI TOWN, China -- China warned the death toll from this week's earthquake could soar to 50,000, while the government issued a rare public appeal Thursday for rescue equipment as it struggled to cope with the disaster. Rescue workers cleared key roads to the epicenter in the race to find survivors.

More than 72 hours after the earthquake rattled central China, the relief effort appeared to shift from poring through downed buildings for survivors to the grim duty of searching for bodies.

The official death toll reached at least 19,500 in Sichuan province alone where Monday's quake was centered, vice governor Li Chengyun told a news conference in the provincial capital of Chengdu. The figure was up from nearly 15,000 confirmed dead the day before.

The State Council, the country's Cabinet, said the number could rise to some 50,000, state TV reported.

[...]

Gu Qinghui, the federation's disaster management director for East Asia who visited Beichuan county near the epicenter, said more than 4 million homes were shattered across the quake area.

"The whole county has been destroyed. Basically there is no Beichuan county anymore," Gu said in Beijing.

AP, May 15

LUOSHUI TOWN, China -- China warned the death toll from this week's earthquake could soar to 50,000, while the government issued a rare public appeal Thursday for rescue equipment as it struggled to cope with the disaster. Rescue workers cleared key roads to the epicenter in the race to find survivors.

More than 72 hours after the earthquake rattled central China, the relief effort appeared to shift from poring through downed buildings for survivors to the grim duty of searching for bodies.

The official death toll reached at least 19,500 in Sichuan province alone where Monday's quake was centered, vice governor Li Chengyun told a news conference in the provincial capital of Chengdu. The figure was up from nearly 15,000 confirmed dead the day before.

The State Council, the country's Cabinet, said the number could rise to some 50,000, state TV reported.

[...]

Gu Qinghui, the federation's disaster management director for East Asia who visited Beichuan county near the epicenter, said more than 4 million homes were shattered across the quake area.

"The whole county has been destroyed. Basically there is no Beichuan county anymore," Gu said in Beijing.

CBC, May 15

China issued an appeal for heavy machinery Thursday, as rescuers dug for survivors and bodies near the epicentre of the massive earthquake that struck the country three days ago.

China's state cabinet said the death toll will likely hit 50,000, as tens of thousands of people are believed to be trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings in the badly affected south-central province of Sichuan, according to the state news agency Xinhua.

More than 19,500 people have been found dead so far, a toll that jumped from 15,000 on Wednesday.

The Chinese government has issued a plea for equipment on its website, asking for donations of cranes, hammers, shovels, demolition tools and rubber boats. Roads in the epicentre area, in Wenchuan in northwest Sichuan, are being cleared and rescue teams made up of 116,000 police and soldiers are finally able to bring in heavy machinery, after digging for survivors for days with their hands.

More than 100 helicopters have also been deployed to the area and the military plans on airdropping 50,000 packets of food and 5,000 blankets into badly hit areas.

PICS

Beichuan was a town of 160,000 nestling in one of the world's most beautiful valleys. When rescuers arrived yesterday, they found a scene of unimaginable devastation and despair

By Clifford Coonan in Beichuan
Friday, 16 May 2008

Reaching Beichuan is a long march into hell. When you finally emerge scrabbling through the dirt into the town, what lies before you is a breathtaking vision of horror. Official estimates say China's worst natural disaster in 30 years has claimed 50,000 lives so far, but looking at the devastation here, it is hard not to imagine the final toll will be much, much higher.

Beichuan county in Sichuan province used to be home to 160,000 people, and most of them lived in the now-forsaken town of the same name, nestling in one of the world's most beautiful valleys. But everyone is gone, either dead or having abandoned their flattened home.

Beichuan was too close to the epicentre of this week's earthquake to stand a chance. At least 80 per cent of it is destroyed, with many thousands of bodies still buried in the rubble. It's hard to imagine this place ever functioning as a town again.

There is still no access by road. People's Liberation Army soldiers rally behind red flags at a rescue station three kilometres away, before starting the trek into the heart of this shattered place.

Our journey to reach Beichuan, which has been almost completely cut off since last Monday's quake, began at a good pace but we were soon forced to slow to a solemn, single-file column as we negotiated the side of the mountain. We stopped to allow soldiers carrying bodies, and occasional survivors to pass, their faces straining with the exertion of carrying their heavy burdens up these steep slopes and across the wreckage of roads and fields.

The narrow access track up to the town is also full of villagers bringing whatever little items they can as they scramble back to the refugee camps in neighbouring towns spared the worst of the quake. These are often old people, who move slowly but steadily, in a way that clearly irritates the fit young teenage troops itching to get past. But who is going to tell a grandmother carrying her life on her back to speed up?

The first sighting of what used to be the town happens about two kilometres away. It now looks like a model railway village that a nasty child has melted and covered with sand. The town was built on the sides of the valley and when the earthquake struck, the buildings slid down on top of others in a sickening concertina, leaving most of the settlement collapsed at the base of the valley. One or two large, newer buildings survived but the other big buildings folded on houses and apartment blocks, leaving mountains of rubble dozens of feet high.

Every day I have reported the story of the Sichuan earthquake it has seemed impossible to imagine things getting worse. Hanwang, with its bodies lying everywhere, was grotesque. Dujiangyan, where hundreds of teenagers were dragged out dead from the mud, was nightmarish. But every day is worse than the next. No one knows what horrors await after Wenchuan, directly above the epicentre, is opened up. At this stage, there can be precious few survivors there. But Beichuan is a truly horrendous sight. The prospect of the death toll reaching beyond 50,000 looks increasingly likely.

Driving up along the valley, along the Chang Jiang, or Long River, which we call the Yangtze, a JCB carrying a mound of corpses wrapped in tarpaulin was an early sign that the scene in Beichuan was going to be harrowing. But it was worse, much worse, than I'd expected.

Shutters are pulled three-quarters of the way down on some shop fronts, and feet are visible beneath them, but the grocer's and fruit shops they are meant to protect are just giant mounds of debris.

At the Middle School, hundreds were buried alive, just as they had been in other schools around Sichuan. The town's prison collapsed, and who knows how many inmates died.

Negotiating the rubble is torturous; finding survivors even worse. Outside a kindergarten, parents went around calling the names of their children. A pile of small bodies had already been recovered and lay on the ground. This earthquake happened during school time, at 2.30pm.

One man found his son's body in the pile, wrapped it carefully in a plastic sheet and carried him away. His wife is a migrant worker who lives elsewhere in China and he tried to call her on his mobile to tell her their child was dead, but there was no signal yet.

"There are people alive in there, and over there, and over there," said one rescuer, outside the ruins of a hairdressing salon. "But we can't get them out; what are we supposed to do."

It's impossible not to get swept up in the relief effort; anyone who is in this town has to help, journalist or not. A crying woman said she could hear cries from beneath the rubble, and I was sent to find a stretcher and workers, but by the time we got back with assistance, the rubble had shifted and there was only a body. People hear things in earthquake zones, mistaking the wailing of the bereaved for the cries of help from their loved ones. Rescuers clamber around the debris shouting "hello" and "anyone there" but only an eerie silence answers.

The rescue effort is centred on one very small section on the edge of town, and only a tiny part of Beichuan has been explored so far. Premier Wen Jiabao, who has flown around from disaster area to disaster area in a helicopter, has visited the town twice so far, but he has been able only to voice words of encouragement to the rescue workers.

China has, cautiously, welcomed some foreign input. When Mr Wen first visited the town he spotted an American doctor, Brian Robinson of the Heart to Heart aid outfit, walking with other volunteers along the road and he ordered the car to stop. He embraced the doctor, thanked him and told him to go to Beichuan and help. An unprecedented action.

It is still impossible to get through to Beichuan with meaningful assistance and aid: most of the cranes, medical supplies and military personnel are all still back down the valley at the disaster relief headquarters.

Rescuers struggle across a bridge lying on the river bed in large chunks, a smashed car on what was the roadside the only evidence that this was ever a bridge. In the streets, the smell of corpses is accentuated by the searing heat that has replaced the heavy rain of days ago. The dry weather makes rescue work easier, but you cannot help worrying about disease being the next problem here.

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CBC, May 17

A second strong aftershock rumbled through China's devastated earthquake zone early Sunday, hours after reports of a swollen river sent thousands of people in Sichuan province fleeing for higher ground.

The aftershock shook the area for about 45 seconds early Sunday local time, causing people to run out into the streets, reports said. Measured at 5.7 magnitude, it was the second strong aftershock to rattle the area in as many days.

In the Sichuan province city of Beichuan, thousands of residents and relief workers fled for higher ground on Saturday after reports said a river may burst its banks and flood the area.

Some rivers in the region have become blocked by landslides rattled loose in last Monday's 7.9-magnitude quake.

The official Xinhua News Agency said earlier that a lake in Beichuan county "may burst its bank at any time," but did not give details on why the water was rising.

In response, soldiers carried older people out of the city of Beichuan, one of the hardest-hit areas, while survivors cradled babies on a road jammed with vehicles and people.

VOA News, May 18

China's state media says the confirmed death toll from the massive earthquake in Sichuan province has risen to more than 32,000.

The official Xinhua news agency said Sunday that the toll has climbed to 32,477, with more than 220,000 innured. Authorities expect the death toll to climb past 50,000.

About 5 million people have lost their homes.

Rescue teams from Russia, South Korea and Singapore joined Japanese workers Saturday. Two U.S. Air Force transport aircraft loaded with tents, food and lanterns were on the way to China.

New York Times, By David Barboza, May 19

MIANYANG, CHINA — China mourned the deaths of tens of thousands of people from last week’s earthquake with three minutes of silence Monday as the government said that over the past three days landslides killed 158 relief workers, burying them in mud as they tried to repair roads in some of the worst hit areas.

The official moment of silence began at 2:28 p.m., exactly a week after the powerful earthquake struck this part of southwestern China, causing the worst natural disaster the country has seen in more than 30 years.

The moment of mourning halted traffic around the country and quieted a nation with bowed heads and moist eyes. Rescue workers also stopped to honor the dead, marking a pause in a difficult but massive relief effort as the hopes of finding new survivors continue to dim.

Powerful aftershocks hampered relief efforts in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Rain and floods have posed additional threats, forcing some operations to be temporarily suspended. The deaths caused by landslides were reported by Xinhua, the official news agency, but the brief report gave few other details.

Reuters, May 20

China raised the number of dead or missing from a devastating earthquake to more than 70,000 today, as rescuers found another survivor eight days after the huge tremor hit.

Vice governor Li Chengyu of the south-western province of Sichuan said the known death toll there alone had now topped 39,500. At least another 500 have been reported killed in neighbouring provinces.

State news agency Xinhua reported that a further 32,000 were still missing.

Authorities had previously said they expected the final death toll to exceed 50,000. The number of injured stands at about 245,000.

NYT, By Andrew Jacobs, May 21

CHENGDU, China — He is widely known as “the crying prime minister,” although he prefers to be called “Grandpa Wen.” Over the past week, as Wen Jiabao toured earthquake-shattered towns and cities across northern Sichuan, he has hollered out words of encouragement to those trapped beneath fallen buildings and shared tearful moments with newly orphaned children.

If a story widely circulated on the Internet is to be believed, Prime Minister Wen has been barking orders to army generals and dispatching paratroopers to remote towns hit hard in the quake, even though as China’s head of government operations he has no power over the military.

Since ascending to the post in 2003, Mr. Wen, 65, has cultivated an image as a man of the people, a rarity in the pantheon of Chinese leaders, who are often seen as placing stability and the authority of the Communist Party above the wants of individuals. The state news media have long labored to spread the notion that Mr. Wen cares for ordinary folks, broadcasting his visits with coal miners and migrant workers, and showing him eagerly shaking the hands of drug addicts and people with AIDS.

Now, as the nation grapples with its greatest natural disaster in three decades, Mr. Wen’s persona as an empathetic, benevolent official has been cemented in popular lore. He has become the public and inescapable face of a nation’s grief since he jumped on a government jet bound for Sichuan Province less than two hours after the earthquake struck.

Warnings of water-borne disease, infections

The death toll from this month's earthquake in central China rose to more than 51,000 Thursday, as officials appealed for international help to provide shelter for millions of people who lost their homes.

A Chinese cabinet spokesman in Beijing, Guo Weimin, gave the latest casualty count after a meeting of ministers in the capital. He said there were 51,151 people dead, a jump of nearly 10,000 over Wednesday's official figures, as well as 29,328 missing and more than 300,000 injured.

At the same time, the Foreign Ministry said China needed global support to gather more than 3.3 million tents for quake survivors sleeping in the open, and to house relief workers in areas where buildings were too damaged by the May 12 quake to provide safe shelter.

"We hope and welcome international assistance in this regard," spokesman Qin Gang said, "We hope the international community can give priority in providing tents."

Rescuers hiking to large Sichuan quake lake as flood alarm grows
www.chinaview.cn 2008-05-25 16:24:52

Armed policemen get ready for hiking towards the Tangjiashan quake lake, in Mianyang, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 25, 2008. The first 150 armed policemen were hiking on Sunday toward Tangjiashan to channel "quake lake" in Sichuan Province, hoping to blast away its landslide barrier before it bursts and causes a flood.

MIANYANG, Sichuan, May 25 (Xinhua) -- About 1,800 armed police officers and People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were hiking on Sunday toward an expanding "quake lake" in southwest Sichuan Province, hoping to blast away its landslide barrier before it bursts and causes a flood.

"The rescuers have 10 kilograms of dynamite each and are expected to arrive at the site on Sunday night," a PLA spokesman told Xinhua early on Sunday.

Two Xinhua reporters have joined a branch of 150 armed police officers to take a bus from Mianyang Airport to the county seat of Beichuan and then hike to Tangjiashan barrier lake.

The team were about two kilometers from Beichuan county seat at5 p.m.

Their trekking would be long and hard, with high mountains to climb and potential landslides. "We've found a local guide in Beichuan County who is willing to take us there," said Gong Juncang, an officer. "We tried once before, but couldn't make it to the top after 12 hours."

An afershock measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale at 4:21 p.m. on Sunday, the strongest since the May 12 quake, could still hamper their efforts.

The tremor was felt clearly in Beichuan, where a reporter with the Chinese Central Television said he "could feel the ground and the mountain were shaking."

Earlier attempts by the PLA and armed police to send military helicopters on the same mission were hampered by adverse weather and low visibility at the Tangjiashan lake site in Beichuan.

The local meteorological bureau forecast high winds and thunderstorms for the area on Sunday and Monday.

The Tangjiashan quake lake, which is in danger of bursting as water builds up in it, is one of the more than 30 such lakes in rivers blocked by landslides from the earthquake and thousands of aftershocks.

The lake is 3.2 km upstream from the Beichuan County seat, from which thousands of survivors have been evacuated since Wednesday.

Its barrier is in danger of bursting as the water level rose by nearly 2 meters on Saturday to 723 meters, only 29 meters below the lowest part of the barrier, which measured 752 meters high.

BBC - Mapping the earthquake zone

* Key areas
* Comments
* Satellite

Taiwan's National Space Organisation has released satellite images of the Beichuan area of Sichuan, showing how the earthquake has caused huge landslides.

The river running down from the mountains through Beichuan has been blocked by earth (seen as brown). Roads have been covered and buildings swept away

The satellite comparisons are sobering

BBC

Aftershocks demolish China homes

Millions of people were made homeless by the 12 May quake

Two further aftershocks have destroyed more than 420,000 houses in the Chinese region hit by a massive earthquake two weeks ago, state-run media say.

Many of the homes appear to have been empty, but six people are said to have been critically injured in the tremors.

They came came as thousands of people were moved from near a lake formed by landslides, amid fears the water could breach banks and deluge the area.

The official death toll from the 12 May quake in Sichuan province is 67,183.

About 20,790 people are listed as missing, with more than five million people homeless since the earthquake.

As the region continues to be shaken, 63 people were injured, including six critically, in the latest aftershocks in Qingchuan county, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

One of the aftershocks measured magnitude 5.7, according to the US Geological Survey.

The same county was strongly shaken on Sunday, wrecking 300,000 more homes, killing eight people and injuring hundreds.

Meanwhile, about 30 towns were being evacuated from near the newly-formed lake because experts fear the build-up of water at the swollen Tangjiashan lake could burst the banks, deluging the area.

Chinese soldiers have dug a channel to ease pressure from the so-called "quake lake".

About 70,000 people have already been moved from nearby Mianyang city in Sichuan province, Xinhua said, with a further 80,000 still being moved.

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CBC, May 30

More than a million people may have to evacuate dozens of villages in a valley in China's Sichuan province if an earthquake-spawned lake threatens to burst and flood the region, an emergency official warned Friday.

Authorities were preparing to run a drill starting Saturday to ensure 1.3 million people in the Mianyang region can get out quickly if the lake breaks through the wall of debris clogging a river.

An official with the press office of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, who would give name only as Chen, said a report earlier Friday by the official Xinhua News Agency that a mass evacuation already had been ordered was wrong.

"People will only be evacuated in case of actual collapsing of the whole bank," Chen told the Associated Press.

By :
Date : 30 May 2008 1903 hrs (SST)
URL : AFP

DUJIANGYAN, China: China rushed on Friday to remove radioactive and chemical materials sitting downstream from a "quake lake" that threatens to burst and send torrents of water into heavily populated areas.

Nearly 100 unidentified radioactive sources were ordered to be removed by Friday evening from the path of the potential torrent of water, state press reported, citing the nation's environmental protection bureau.

"Moving those radioactive sources has become a top, urgent priority," the Beijing Times quoted Ma Ning, a senior regional official at the bureau, as saying.

The directive to move the radioactive material came as authorities were already working to relocate about 5,000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals that were downstream of the lake at Tangjiashan.

Dealing with the "quake lake" has become one of the key challenges in the aftermath of the May 12 earthquake that devastated large tracts of mountainous Sichuan province, killing more than 68,800 people.

The lake was created when landslides triggered by the quake created a dam across a river in a valley.

Highlighting the sense of alarm, the official Xinhua news agency reported Friday that 1.3 million people had been ordered to evacuate, but residents and a local government spokesman immediately denied there was any such order.

Helicopters have been used to airlift supplies to hundreds of soldiers working desperately to create a channel that can drain the lake, which contains enough water to fill over 50,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

After three days of non-stop efforts, the soldiers had dug a 50-metre (164-foot) wide channel 300 metres long, but despite the frantic pace the work would not be completed until next Thursday, the state-run China Daily reported.

More than a million people risk being affected if the Tanjiashan Lake empties onto towns and villages downstream.

Nearly 170,000 people have already been evacuated while many others have been doing regular drills to move quickly to higher ground in the event that the lakes do burst.

However, it was not the only area of Sichuan at risk. There were 33 other lakes created by the quake, 28 of which were at risk of bursting, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Other unexpected dangers also continued to arise amid the massive task of looking after the 15 million people made homeless in the quake.

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AP, By William Foreman, May 31

MIANYANG, China — Chinese authorities prepared to begin draining a swelling earthquake-formed lake Sunday after evacuating nearly 200,000 people and warning more than a million others to be ready to leave quickly.

The lake, called Tangjiashan, formed above Beichuan town in the Mianyang region of Sichuan province when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake.

Authorities fear the waters could burst free and flood the area, endangering hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are already shattered by the earthquake.

The official Xinhua News Agency said work on a runoff channel from Tangjiashan had been completed.

Reuters - Chinese troops on Saturday eased pressure on a swelling "quake lake" threatening hundreds of thousands of people, but a smaller lake burst its banks in a show of destructive force.

BBC - Chinese troops have begun draining a "quake lake" at Tangjiashan, formed behind a landslide after the 12 May earthquake in Sichuan province.

Water started draining through a sluice and channel built to release some of the water threatening to break through the make-shift dam.

More than 250,000 people have already been evacuated to higher ground.

Experts had warned the lake could burst at any time, sending millions of cubic metres of water down river valleys.

"Emergency work is still proceeding urgently, but in the foreseeable future there's no risk of the dam collapsing," Xinhua News Agency quoted Chengdu Military Region Deputy Commander Fan Xiaoguang as saying.

Engineers are monitoring bridges and river banks downstream to see if they will hold under the rush of water.

Work crews are trying to dig a secondary channel to improve the flow, China Central Television and the Xinhua News Agency reports.

Plans are in place to quickly evacuate an estimated 1.3m people who live in the surrounding area of the lake, just above the town of Beichuan, bursts.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has warned of heavy rain across China, including Sichuan, over the weekend.

The threat posed by more than 30 quake lakes formed during the earthquake has become one of the most pressing issues in the aftermath of the quake.

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CARA ANNA –

JIANGYOU, China (AP) — Soldiers blew up wooden houses and other debris Sunday in a lake formed by China's deadly earthquake to speed the flow of water into a spillway and ease the threat of flooding for more than 1 million people.

The Tangjiashan lake, created when a landslide dammed the Tongkou River, continued to swell even as water gushed down the diversion channel built after two weeks of frantic work by engineers and soldiers.

The spillway is meant to ease the threat of flooding for more than 1 million people in the disaster zone.

Authorities were still on high alert, although the draining operation was progressing smoothly, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

"There is a lot of debris in the upper reaches, and some are quite big, like wooden houses. So now we have asked soldiers to eliminate the debris by using explosives or other means," Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei told China Central Television.

Soldiers hurled explosives at pieces of splintered wood drifting in one section, according to footage aired during the CCTV noon newscast. Troops also blasted away boulders in the diversion channel, Xinhua reported.

Draining the Tangjiashan lake has become a priority for a government trying to head off another catastrophe as it cares for millions left homeless by the May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people. More than 1.3 million people live downriver from Tangjiashan, and 250,000 of them have been evacuated.

Government experts, quoted by state media, played down the threat of imminent flooding, saying Tangjiashan's landslide-created dam should hold. But state media and officials estimated it would be a week before the evacuees could return home, even if all goes well.

The official death toll crept up Saturday to 69,134 people, with 17,681 still missing.

The Tangjiashan lake is the largest of more than 30 created by last month's quake

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The water level in an earthquake-formed lake in China is still rising, despite the creation of a drainage channel.

By early Monday, the water level was more than 6 feet (2m) higher than the man-made channel created to ease the problem, Xinhua news agency said.

Soldiers are using short-range missiles to blast away rocks and mud preventing the water from getting to the channel.

Experts warn that the lake could burst at any time, flooding the homes of more than one million people.

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BBC has video of the military blasting the debris: link

10 Jun 2008 08:34:03 GMT
By Chris Buckley

JIANGYOU, China, June 10 (Reuters) - Floodwaters crashed out of a dangerously unstable "quake lake" in southwest China on Tuesday after soldiers blasted open a sluice, significantly easing the threat of disaster for hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

Water from the Tangjiashan lake, the largest of the more than 30 formed by the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province, turned into a torrent after troops used explosives to blow away rocks, mud and other rubble blocking its path.

The muddy brown water picked up clumps of trees, cars, fridges and other debris, swamping low-lying areas of the devastated town of Beichuan nearby, washing away remains of corpses, family mementoes and valuables left under the rubble.

The Tangjiashan lake, created when landslides triggered by the quake blocked the flow of the Jianjiang River, has so far prompted the evacuation of more than 250,000 residents downstream in case the mud-and-rock dam bursts.

"The flow downstream has increased dramatically, but the dam hasn't collapsed," Zhou Hua, spokesman for the lake relief operation, told Reuters. "The channel has widened but this isn't a collapse.

"... So far everything is happening within expectations. As things are, we don't expect to have to evacuate any more."

The water level behind the dam had dropped by more than 16 metres (53 ft) on Tuesday as 90 million cubic metres of water was released, Xinhua news agency said.

"The danger has been further reduced," it added.

It attributed the abrupt increase in water discharged from the lake to "two massive blasts on Monday evening which broke through the bottleneck" in a sluice opened by soldiers.

The torrents had further widened and lowered the sluice.

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