World | Other World Stories
China turns attention to quake survivors
Heavy rain forecast for southwest China threatened to disrupt relief efforts on Wednesday and raise the risk of reservoir breaches in earthquake-stricken areas, where tents have become the most-wanted item.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:21 May 22, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, construction workers work on a resettlement site for the victims of the May 12 quake in Dujiangyan, in southwest China's Sichuan province, on Tuesday.
Qingchuan : Heavy rain forecast for southwest China threatened to disrupt relief efforts on Wednesday and raise the risk of reservoir breaches in earthquake-stricken areas, where tents have become the most-wanted item.
Thousands of aftershocks and a forecast of more rain compounded the difficulties for military, government and private workers trying to deliver aid and ensure millions got shelter as the focus turned inevitably from rescue to relief.
Unlike previous days, no survivors were reported found by mid-afternoon last day. Nine days after the huge quake hit the mountainous Sichuan province, the toll of dead and missing stood at more than 70,000, with a further 247,000 hurt.
Entire city homeless
An estimated 5 million people were left homeless by the 7.9-magnitude quake. In the countryside, many farmers now live in encampments of makeshift shelters with their homes too damaged or too unsafe to live in. Officials said 3 million tents were needed.
"The biggest hardship we have is not having a tent," said Wang Falan, who lives with her extended family of 11 in two makeshift shelters. "It is also the lack of rice and cooking oil. I don't know what we'll do if we have to keep living like this."
Nearly the whole population of Shifang, a small city near Chengdu, spent the night in the open on Tuesday despite the rain.
Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the supply of 250,000 temporary housing units - simple steel structures normally used by construction workers - to the quake area by June 30 and the number should reach 1 million in three months, state media said.
Conscious of the threat of disease, rescue workers continued to douse wrecked towns and villages with disinfectant and lime. Xinhua state news agency reported more than 5,000 epidemic prevention workers had been sent to 125 villages in Sichuan. It said more than 25 billion yuan (Dh13.1b) in relief funds and donations from home and abroad had so far been contributed to the relief effort.
At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Wen warned of the threat of "secondary disasters", ordering experts to inspect dams and reservoirs on 24-hour patrols with more heavy rain forecast. He said damaged dams must open floodgates to run at low or even empty water levels and the dozens of "barrier lakes" formed by numerous landslides blocking river flows must be monitored.
In Qingchuan county, where more than 2,670 people died in the quake, troops evacuated some 9,000 residents on Tuesday after huge cracks appeared on the top of a tree-covered mountain.
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