change
Judging by what was just broadcast on CCTV 1 two minutes ago, this afternoon airdrops from helicopters of supplies and, presumably, from planes of personnel happened this afternoon.
crying
CCTV 1 is back to the wall-to-wall coverage of the Sichuan quake that we saw last night.
Note: I almost never watch TV, so I have no idea what’s been broadcast, really. I noticed, when I stopped by a colleague’s place after class, just before 5 this evening, that CCTV 9 also had live coverage. I only turned on the TV because I noticed it was 7:30 and I thought I should at least catch the weather forecast. lzh is out with a friend, you see, and so had I not thought of the weather, the TV would not have been turned on until she got home.
Well, the ads are playing as per normal, but I noticed the weather forecast had a particular focus on the disaster zone, and that they were forecasting clear and warm weather for tomorrow. Good, they need a break down there, and good weather will increase people’s chances of surviving.
Tonight’s edition of 焦点访谈 just ended. It focused, as you may see from that link, on the quake. Dammit, man, it’s just heartbreaking watching that footage, seeing those photos. There was much footage of rescue teams trying to pull people out of the wreckage, including one segment in which the camera and sound people got up close and personal as a team made contact with one buried survivor, reassured the poor kid (I’m pretty sure it was a young girl, although it was hard to tell from what was on TV) and started discussing how to pull her out. They had to make a run for it as another aftershock hit, but they got back to this kid as soon as they could, and got her out. In another segment, a young child, about seven or eight years old so far as I could tell, was pulled out and stretchered away to medical attention. The look of sheer relief on her face was astounding.
These guys, these rescue teams, be they specialist earthquake rescue teams or ordinary soldiers, police or civilians drafted in, they’re real heroes. They’re incredible. They have my utmost respect. I am in awe of them. I can only pray that God gives them all the strength necessary, and then some, to keep going.
Whatever programme it is that’s followed 焦点访谈 (didn’t pay attention to the title, but in the bottom right of the screen is 抗震救灾；众志成城) after the insufferably long ad break has continued with the quake coverage. They’re now on a CGI view of the terrain of the affected area discussing damage to various villages and towns, but they just broadcast footage of Wen Jiabao flying around on a PLA-AF Mil helicopter keeping tabs on the effort. Damn, that man is good. He looked to be on the verge of emotional collapse, as I know I would be in the face of such catastrophe, last night. He’s still out there, still going, doing what he can. He looks ready to burst into tears at any moment. I can’t understand how he holds up under such circumstances. I know I wouldn’t.
We’ve had aerial footage, and now we’re gettting what could be first looked like satellite shots, but no, must be from a helicopter flying at a relatively high altitude. Like all the photos and footage out there, this footage is simply horrific. Entire mountainsides have collapsed.
Now we have a PLA soldier with his arm in a sling looking to be in pain on top of a mound of rubble still helping direct rescue efforts.
One thing I have never doubted is PLA soldiers’ dedication to their jobs, dedication to service to their nation. It ain’t always a good thing, but in a time like this, it can only be good and goes way beyond awe-inspiring.
Well, the laowai blogosphere, Chengdu division, seems to have escaped almost miraculously unscathed. kmm at Barking at the Sun (click on the word ‘division’ above) has done a pretty damn good job of collecting up other laowai first hand accounts. John at Green Bamboo (click on ‘Chengdu’) is surviving just as I would’ve expected him to, and is providing pretty decent coverage, too. Check them both out for good eye-witness accounts.
I missed what city/town they’re now broadcasting- oh, Dujiangyan- the damage is overwhelming. It looks like the whole city will need rebuilding.
Just moved on to Mianzhu where it looks like pretty much everybody is living in tents.
I don’t know why, but I guess for a variety of reasons, like this is the country I have adopted as my second home, the country of my wife and her family (who are all, blessedly in our case, safely up north) and many others I love, or because I, having been born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand, grew up with earthquakes and the stories of historic earthquakes and therefore know through first hand experience, the words of my elders, and the meeting of the two in a reasonably intelligent brain, just what an earthquake is and what it can do, or all of the above, but this disaster, I have to admit, has hit me harder than Nargis or last winter’s snows.
I certainly don’t mean to detract from or belittle either disaster or its victims.
There’s something about weather you can prepare for (and Wellington is infamous for its weather, so trust me, I’ve seen storms as bad as the earthquakes I’ve experienced, and the same goes for the words of my elders), but earthquakes just strike out of the blue.
lzh last night mentioned that many have said there were plenty of warning signs, omens, if you will, of an impending quake. I’m pretty strict on the “We listen to science, not rumour or superstition” thing in this house, but having plenty of experience and first-hand knowledge of earthquakes, I came down pretty hard on the “Yeah, sure, afterwards everybody says there was this or that omen, but nobody ever says that before the quake. Earthquakes are not volcanoes; they do not give out warnings. It’s that simple.”
The news from Myanmar only gets worse and worse, to the point where it hardly seems worth praying or wishing the best for the people caught in between an army, a cyclone, disease, and the possibility of a new storm. Sorry folks, but that one is too far beyond my scope of tragedy for me to cope with.
The news from Sichuan is not getting any better, and likely won’t for several weeks, but it is news I can compute.
I have to end this post. I’ve missed too much to figure out exactly what is being broadcast right now. Let’s just say that as far as I can tell, the government is going all out, has pulled out all stops, to get aid, relief and rescue into all affected areas. The pictures online and the footage I’m seeing on TV are simply horrific, but real heroes are in there putting in a superhuman effort.
I think I just saw footage shot from a helicopter showing a river forced to change course by a landslide.
All my hopes and prayers are with those caught in the disaster and those doing what they can to rescue the survivors.
Be safe, everybody, please.
pictures
lzh just sent me a link to these rather terrifying pictures apparently from Wenchuan. I can’t guarantee their authenticity, but that is definitely earthquake damage.
oh, and…
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on May 13, 2008
It would seem from talking to a colleague and students today that nobody here at BeiGongDa felt either of the quakes, which suggests that either our buildings are nice and solid or we’re on good, solid soil. Or quite likely both. Unlike those up in the CBD, it would seem. And I was thinking about this and realised that Building 1, where I teach all my classes and where I was when the quakes hit yesterday afternoon, probably survived the ’76 Tangshan quake, which did some pretty serious damage in Beijing and Tianjin when it flattened Tangshan. That makes me feel a little more comfortable.
grrr
Posted by wangbo in ranting, tilting at windmills on May 13, 2008
Sometimes it’s really easy to understand why Chinese people might be less than satisfied with the foreign media. Take, for example, this snippet from that Associated Propaganda article on the Sichuan quake I linked to this morning:
Though slow to release information at first, the government and its state media ramped up quickly. Nearly 20,000 soldiers, police and reservists were sent to the disaster area.
Disasters always pose a test for the communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth, and providing relief in emergencies.
Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, with the government already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.
Why do they feel the need to politicise a disaster? Really:
- Probably the government was slow to release information first because it was not easy to get information. Yes, I know their record, but…. Earthquakes do tend to play havoc with communication systems. If they don’t knock down transmission towers and sever cables, the sheer volume of traffic generated by people trying to make sure their loved ones are ok and/or calling for help tends to overwhelm the system. And Wenchuan, remember, was completely cut off by the quake, and the first soldiers had to go in there on foot.
- Disasters pose a test for any government and its “legitimacy” (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean). Hurricane Katrina, anyone? Didn’t do much for people’s approval of the Bush administration, now, did it? Anybody want to start taking bets on Cyclone Nargis’ likely effect on Myanmar politics?
- And you know what? I find the implication that the government’s only concern is staying in power just plain offensive. Is it really so hard to imagine that they would, perhaps, be concerned and motivated to respond by the fact that roughly 10,000 people have been killed, thousands upon thousands more injured, and untold numbers are at risk of death, injury or disease?
Should I point out that that snippet is followed by a quotation from President Bush which AP does not question in any way?
Really, politicising an earthquake. Incredible. Disgusting.
as I thought…
‘Tis as I thought it would be. Yesterday’s reported toll of four or five, depending on who you asked, is now over 8,700 according to AP (via Yahoo news) and nearly 10,000 according to Xinhua‘s English site. Xinhua’s Chinese site has similar figures, but I’m having a bit more trouble navigating their reporting. Still, it is only half past seven in the morning, a time I previously considered a figment of hyper-active people’s imagination. This article published apparently one second after midnight claims 8533.
It would seem, judging by that AP article, that although downtown areas of big cities got off lightly, outlying areas and smaller towns and cities were hit pretty badly. Some of the pictures coming through, instead of yesterday’s “Oh look, we’re shaking, haha” rubbish, show your classic big quake aftermath- crumpled remains of buildings. And reports are thousands are still trapped, so I would expect the death toll to continue climbing over the next few days.
sorry
Sorry, folks, but a neither a 7.8 quake way down in Sichuan– allegedly felt as far afield as Beijing (bollocks- we had our own quake, apparently), Bangkok and Taipei (according to a comment in the Danwei thread) nor a 3.9 quake centered out in Tongzhou is going to cause enough shaking for this Wellingtonian to notice. John seems to have enjoyed it, though. Sitting outside drinking beer, indeed. Judging by his post, it seems Chengdu got off much more lightly than I would’ve expected considering how close to the epicentre it is. And is Chengdu not on a river plain? Silt is not good soil to be on in during an earthquake.
Xinhua’s English language report says four pupils were killed and over 100 injured when the quake toppled two primary schools in Chongqing’s Liangping County. My condolences go to the families’, of course, but at the same time this seems to be a very low casualty rate for such a large quake. I guess we’ll have to wait for more news to filter out, considering there are hints of quite serious damage in some rather far flung places.
Update: A report attributed to Reuters has made it onto New Zealand’s imaginatively-named Stuff (and yes, it is the website of one of NZ’s big newspaper groups). This article claims five deaths, but doesn’t make it clear where that figure comes from. It also states:
But an official at the seismological bureau there said phone lines in Sichuan’s Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the quake, were completely cut off and there were reports of damage to buildings in neighboring counties, meaning there could yet be casualties in that area.
So yes, we’re going to have to wait for more reports.
waste paper pencils
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study, news on May 10, 2008
It’s a small article without a lot of detail, but still, 京报网 reports that a small company in Daxing is making pencils out of waste newspapers and doing very well out of it, too:
大兴废报纸做铅笔出口欧美
Daxing makes pencils out of waste newspapers, exports to Europe and America
一张看过的《北京日报》可以生产4支铅笔,一吨废旧报纸可以生产20万支铅笔。大兴区一家民营科技企业利用废报纸做铅笔,去年共生产纸制铅笔3300万 支,相当于节约木材1500立方米。这些环保铅笔走进人民大会堂,成为全国人大、全国政协、商务部等国家机关的专用笔,还出口美国、英国、挪威、澳大利亚 等22个国家和地区。
A copy of “Beijing Daily” that’s already been read can produce four pencils, one ton of waste newspapers can produce 20,000 pencils. A privately owned science and technology company in Daxing District is successfully using waste newspapers to make pencils, producing altogether 33,000,000 paper-made pencils last year, saving the equivalent of 1500 cubic metres of wood. These environmentally-friendly pencils have entered the Great Hall of the People and have become the official pencils of such organs as the NPC, CPPCC, and Ministry of Commerce, and are exported to 22 countries and regions including the USA, UK, Norway and Australia.
该公司利用废旧纸张完全替代木材生产铅笔,不仅变废为宝,还实现了铅笔的环保目标。他们采用高温高压物理技术,将纸张木化,制成铅笔。整个过程不使用粘合剂,并采用热熔漂浮工艺法将废报纸中含有的大部分油墨去除。
This company has completely subsituted waste paper for wood in the production of pencils, not only turning waste into treasure, but also achieving the environmentally friendly aim of the pencils. They’ve adopted high temperature, high pressure physics technology to turn the paper to wood to make pencils. No adhesives are used throughout the whole process, and a heat floating technique is used to remove most of the ink from the waste newspaper.
Alright, what the hell is a “热熔漂浮”? None of the tools at my disposal enlighten me (and nciku is working right now).
Anyway, this is pretty cool, turning waste paper into pencils and apparently, judging by how widely used these pencils seem to be, making a pretty decent profit out of it. It would be nice if 京报网 would tell us which company is doing this, so we could congratulate them properly, and maybe even buy a few.
don’t leave stuff behind
Posted by wangbo in news, ranting, tilting at windmills on May 10, 2008
新京报/The Beijing News is reporting a bomb scare on the No. 47 bus at its terminus by Haidian Bridge at about 3 yesterday afternoon. A suspicious- meaning unaccompanied and unclaimed- case was left on the bus, and so the police were called, a cordon set up, and the public removed from the scene. After an investigation, they discovered that it contained tools for repairing air conditioners.
And so I have this message for all the dumb-arses living in or visiting Beijing: Take your stuff with you when you get off the bus (or train, or whatever). Don’t leave it behind. The police take their role as guardians of public security seriously– and rightly so, I mean, it is their job- and with the Olympics coming up and that bus fire down in Shanghai and that 5 kg can of petrol found in a cultural heritage site, it’s only natural to assume that a package abandoned on a bus (or subway train or any public space) might, perhaps, contain something a little more dangerous than tools. So don’t leave stuff behind. Take it with you.
and congratulations, too….
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study on May 10, 2008
And congratulations to the nciku team on passing 500,000 entries, with a mammoth 159,855 entries added this week. Damn, you guys must be working hard.