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Chinese scramble to help quake orphans
The plight of the children has prompted huge numbers of couples to offer to care for them.
- By David Eimer, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008 With inputs from AP
- Published: 23:35 June 1, 2008
Beijing: With bewilderment in their eyes and identity tags dangling from their necks, these are the faces of orphans who lost their families in the Sichuan earthquake. While in one sense totally alone, they huddle together in their thousands in refugee camps across the Chinese province.
The plight of the children has prompted huge numbers of couples to offer to care for them. Phone lines to the Sichuan Civil Affairs Department in Chengdu, which handles adoptions in the region, have been jammed since soon after the quake on May 12, with tens of thousands of couples calling round the clock to offer their services as prospective parents.
There has been a widespread outpouring of grief and sympathy for the almost 5,500 children whose parents are either dead or missing, fuelled by poignant images of orphans wearing refugee tags in camps set up for the homeless. With 18,618 people still unaccounted for, the number of youngsters left alone is expected to rise.
Motivated
Many couples seeking to adopt earthquake orphans are also motivated by the chance to get around China's strict one-child policy.
"I think if two kids grow up together then they can help each other and they will be more rounded people. My neighbour has two children and I can see that her children are more considerate and nicer to their parents, unlike my only son who is really spoiled,'' said Mrs Li, an accountant from Huainan in Jiangsu Province.
Like many of the couples, Mrs Li and her civil servant husband would like to adopt a young girl to be a sister to her nine-year-old son.
"I already have a boy, really a naughty one,'' she said. "I think a girl will be much quieter and will have a closer relationship with me. It makes a nice balance to have a boy and a girl.'' Her son, too, is looking forward to having a sister. "I've spoken to him about it,'' said Mrs Li. "He was happy and he's promised me he would never bully her. I can feel that he will be more responsible when he knows he is an older brother.''
But Mrs Li faces stiff competition in her desire to adopt. The Chaoyang district branch of the Beijing Civil Affairs Department, just one of 16 such offices in the Chinese capital, said that more than a thousand couples hoping to adopt a Sichuan orphan had already registered with them.
Helicopter crash
Meanwhile, a military helicopter carrying 10 people injured in the earthquake and four crew members crashed in fog and turbulence, and authorities were searching for survivors, state media reported yesterday.
The Russian-designed Mi-171 transport helicopter crashed on Saturday afternoon in Wenchuan county in China's quake-hit southwest, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
There was no immediate word on any survivors or casualties.
As the rescue efforts continued, troops equipped with diggers and backhoes finished digging a channel to siphon off water from an earthquake-formed lake that authorities feared could burst and further devastate stricken areas.
Do you think more support should be extended to people who have been affected by the quake? What do you think will be the long-term effects of this disaster? Tell us at letter2editor@gulfnews.com or fill in the form below to send your comments.
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