MCLC: Sichuan quake kills dozens

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Sichuan quake kills dozens
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (4/20/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/world/asia/china-earthquake.html

Quake Kills Dozens in China, and Hundreds Are Injured
By JANE PERLEZ and ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — A powerful earthquake rocked China’s southwestern Sichuan
province Saturday morning, killing at least 124 people, injuring more than
3,000 and leaving unknown numbers of people trapped, according to the
state media.

The earthquake, which struck at 8:02 a.m. local time in Ya’an city,
occurred 53 miles from the devastating quake five years ago that left
87,000 people dead or missing in a mountainous region northeast of
Chengdu, the provincial capital.

The quake on Saturday occurred along the same fault line.

In one hard-hit township, Longmen, one resident reported that 90 percent
of the homes had been destroyed, suggesting the death toll could rise much
higher.

The Chengdu Evening Paper said 600 people had been injured, 135 of them
seriously, in Lushan county, which is part of Ya’an city. Xinhua quoted a
hospital official who said scores of injured people were sprawled in front
of the county hospital Saturday afternoon. Firefighters in Lushan pulled
27 survivors from collapsed buildings, Xinhua said.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and several other senior Chinese officials from
Beijing flew to Sichuan on Saturday afternoon, according to the state
media. “The current most urgent issue is grasping the first 24 hours after
the quake’s occurrence, the golden time for saving lives, to take
scientific rescue measures and save peoples’ lives,” Xinhua quoted Mr. Li
as saying. He took a helicopter to Lushan County, and he went to the
county’s main hospital to visit the injured, according to Sichuan media.

The China Earthquake Networks Center said the quake had a magnitude of
7.0, and occurred 6 miles beneath the earth’s surface. Scientists said the
quake was relatively shallow and thus more destructive.

“Now the houses on both sides of the street have become dangerous
buildings,” Zhang Linpeng told the Sichuan news service. “I’ve seen people
trapped in the ruins, and some people died. Many of the injured have been
pulled out.”

Rescue efforts were hampered by landslides and officials expressed concern
over two barrier lakes that had formed after landslides had blocked two
waterways.

Xinhua said one soldier was killed and seven injured after the truck they
were riding in plunged into a river. Photos taken on the highway to Ya’an
showed an enormous boulder blocking the way.

According to the state media, more than 7,400 soldiers and armed police
and two helicopters had been dispatched to the quake zone.

Authorities also sent another 1,400 provincial rescue workers, 180 doctors
from a national emergency response team, 120 “professional rescue
vehicles” and six search-and-rescue dogs. As a precaution, 80,000 inmates
were evacuated from prisons in affected area.

A reporter from the daily newspaper of Ya’an, the area that encompasses
Lushan County where the quake epicenter lay, said on China’s Sina Weibo, a
Twitter-like service, that residents in Lushan needed tents, blankets,
bottled water, food and medicine.

Ya’an, which sits on a basin on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, is about
75 miles, from Chengdu. The city, which includes Lushan county, has a
population of 1.5 million.

Scientists say the quake occurred along a seismically active fault line,
known as Longmenshan, that runs between the Tibetan plateau and Sichuan
Basin. Jiang Haikun, an official with the China Earthquake Administration,
said 12 earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater have occurred along
the Longmenshan fault line since 1900.

The quake struck almost exactly five years since the calamitous Wenchuan
quake, a disaster that raised questions about poorly constructed school
buildings that collapsed and killed thousands of students.

That earthquake prompted a massive official relief effort, and a
passionate outpouring of volunteer help. But some quake-stricken residents
and observers faulted the government for dispatching rescue efforts to the
wrong places, or failing to muster the equipment needed to lift victims
from under slaps of concrete and brick. Instead, many troops and rescuers
clambered over the rubble with sticks and spades.

This time, the government appears intent on avoiding any accusations of
laggardness, even if the quake was less destructive than the one in 2008.
In one notable gesture, CCTV, the state broadcaster, posted photographs
online of Mr. Li and other senior leaders sitting on a plane bound for
Sichuan. State media also said that Mr. Li and Chinese President Xi
Jinping had convened an emergency meeting earlier in the day to coordinate
rescue efforts.

In contrast to the earthquake in 2008, when officials restricted
independent reporting on the disaster, Ran Wang, a businessman, said he
hoped officials would allow greater transparency. “No censorship, no cover
ups or control so the right of the people and society to be informed
during natural disasters are respected,” he wrote on his microblog account.

The quake was powerful enough to be felt hundreds of miles away in Yunnan,
Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces. In Chongqing, 200 miles away from the
epicenter, residents raced down the stairwells of apartment buildings and
stood in the streets in their undergarments.

As of midday, the number of aftershocks exceeded 200, with 15 of them
greater than a magnitude of 4.0.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Hong Kong.