Chinese aid workers battle landslides and narrow roads to boost rescue efforts after earthquake leaves thousands injured

Chinese aid workers managed to reach remote areas of south-western China today giving a much-needed boost to rescue efforts following a powerful earthquake on Saturday which has left more than 200 people dead and thousands badly injured.

Landslides and narrow roads have made it difficult for aid and rescue workers to reach areas of Sichuan province, though some managed to get through to the remote Baoxing country on foot yesterday. Limited access and a disrupted communications networks had prevented a clear picture of the devastation from emerging.

Saturday’s earthquake, which was measured by China’s earthquake administration at magnitude 7.0 and by the US Geological Survey at 6.6, had its epicentre in Lushan county, near the city of Ya’an, on the Longmenshan fault, where the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 killed over 90,000 people five years ago. “Relief is getting through but much more slowly than we would like to see,” said Francis Markus, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“It’s obviously difficult for people who have been through this disaster to spend a day without supplies,” said Mr Markus. The earthquake, which struck at 8am on a Saturday when schools and offices were closed and many people in farming communities were out in the fields, has mostly affected rural areas.

“We lost everything in such a short time,” 20 year-old college student Luo Shiqiang told the Associated Press. He said his grandfather was just returning from feeding chickens when their house collapsed and crushed him to death.

“I was working in the field when I heard the explosions of the earthquake, and I turned around and saw my house simply flatten in front of me,” said Fu Qiuyue, a 70-year-old rapeseed farmer in Longmen.

China’s earthquake response has become a well-drilled machine since the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. State media said Beijing was quick to mobilise troops and rescue workers. In all, 18,000 soldiers and officers from the different wings of China’s military, including the army, the armed police and the paramilitary reserves, have been mobilised. So far 10,000 have reached areas that were worst hit, the Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) said.

But some residents said little had been done after Wenchuan to build up earthquake defences in Lushan and Baoxing counties, which were worst hit at the weekend.

“Maybe the country’s leaders really wanted to help us, but when it comes to the lower levels the officials don’t carry it out,” said Luo Shiqiang. In some parts of Baoxing country, more than 60 per cent of buildings had suffered damage and roads to towns in the affected area were wrecked by landslides.

“There are still some pockets that rescuers are working to get into but gradually the picture is becoming clearer,” said Mr Markus. “There are some areas where all the houses were destroyed.”

In some ways, the damage was less devastating than it could have been because many of the houses which collapsed were simple rural dwellings with timber construction.

Rescue workers brought excavators and other heavy machinery as well as tents, blankets and other emergency supplies. Two soldiers were killed after their vehicle slid off a road and rolled down a cliff.

Premier Li Keqiang visited an intensive care unit today, and epicentre of the quake in Lushan County on Saturday, in a gesture reminiscent of his predecessor Wen Jiabao’s hands-on approach during the Wenchuan quake five years ago.

“Be relaxed and relieved. Doctors here will make their utmost efforts to help you recover as soon as possible,” Mr Li told Yue Anhong, a local resident who was buried under rubble and seriously injured.

Sunday 21 April 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-aid-workers-battle-landslides-and-narrow-roads-to-boost-rescue-efforts-after-earthquake-leaves-thousands-injured-8581903.html

Shutterbug captures the lifeless

Who is not game for clicking pictures of events and tourists spots? But taking snaps of the dead is not everyone’s cup of tea.

Decomposed and mutilated bodies offer a revolting sight; but for Hussain Khan, clicking such pictures is part of his profession. The 65-year-old, a retired police head constable, has been doing it for the last many years at the Osmania General Hospital mortuary.

It all started after Mr. Hussain retired from the Government Railway Police (GRP) in 2005. As per rules, the police keep a photograph of victims of unnatural deaths in its record. And it is here that Mr. Hussain’s services were required.

“I was used to seeing and handling bodies of train accident victims so I did not find the job difficult. I was entrusted with the job of conducting ‘panchanama’ and shifting the bodies to the mortuary,” he says.

The 65-year-old now takes photographs of all bodies, including unknown ones, and preserves them.

“If anyone comes in search of missing persons, I show them [pictures of] the bodies. Many people have identified their relatives through the photographs,” he says.

His service is free for unknown bodies, though he collects some money from the relatives of those identified.

“I spend a considerable amount in getting the photographs developed at a local studio. But at the end of the day, I do manage to make some money. The relatives of the dead offer money recognising my service,” he says. For the sexagenarian Mr. Hussain, however, the job has now become something of a social service.

Sunday 21 April 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/shutterbug-captures-the-lifeless/article4640559.ece

Pakistani army recovers avalanche body as operation resumed in Gayari district

A body of a Gayari Shaheed was recovered Sunday afternoon as operation to recover the bodies of remaining soldiers buried under heavy avalanche last year.

A total of 122 Jasde Khaki of Shuhada have been recovered so far. Today first body of a shaheed was recovered after resumption of Gayari search operation, the army said.

It may be recalled that on 7 April 2012, 140 soldiers and civilians of 6 Northern Light Infantry Battalion came under a huge snow slide at Gyari and embraced shahadat. 121 x bodies of Shuhada were recovered before suspension of Operation Gyari due to winters on 27 November 2012.

After opening of weather and melting of snow, search for remaining 19 x Shuhada commenced on 15 April,2013 by employing 228 x military personnel and 29 x heavy engineering equipment pieces including excavators, dozers and drill machines.

It is once again reiterated that these sustained efforts would continue till recovery of last man.

Sunday 21 April 2013

http://www.newspakistan.pk/2013/04/21/pak-army-recovers-soldier-body-operation-resumes/

Three bodies found after Hong Kong boat collision

Hong Kong underwater search teams have recovered three bodies, a day after two boats collided in fog in the city's busy waterways, with three crew members still missing.

Police meanwhile arrested the two captains.

The incident Thursday night refocused attention on Hong Kong's maritime safety, and came after a ferry crash in October claimed 39 lives in the city's worst sea disaster in 40 years.

Search teams were deployed after a boat with 11 crew from mainland China carrying construction waste collided with another vessel on the southeast of the island and began to sink. Five crew were rescued soon after.

"The fire department's diving rescue personnel found three dead males inside the sunken cargo vessel tonight," the police said in an statement late Friday.

Officers arrested four people from both vessels, aged 30 to 58, including both captains, on suspicion of "endangering the safety of others at sea", the statement said.

The October catastrophe saw a high-speed passenger ferry collide with a pleasure boat carrying around 120 people. The captains of the boats involved were charged with 39 counts of manslaughter last week and face life in prison if convicted.

Sunday 21 April 2013

http://www.mb.com.ph/article.php?aid=8581&sid=1&subid=6#.UXRQGZNzA34

China rescuers rush into remote areas after quake kills 186

Rescuers in China pushed into remote villages in Sichuan province, hit by an earthquake that has killed 186 and injured more than 11,000 as survivors make do living in cars or makeshift tents.

Dozens remain missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city, along the same fault line where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighbouring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters.

The Lushan and Baoxing counties hardest-hit on Saturday had escaped the worst of the damage in the 2008 quake, and residents there said they benefited little from the region's rebuilding after the disaster, with no special reinforcements made or new evacuation procedures introduced in their remote communities.

Relief teams flew in helicopters and dynamited through landslides Sunday to reach some of the most isolated communities, where rescuers in orange overalls led sniffer dogs through piles of brick, concrete and wood debris to search for survivors.

Many residents complained that although emergency teams were quick to carry away bodies and search for survivors, they had so far done little to distribute aid. "No water, no shelter," read a hand-written sign held up by children on a roadside in Longmen.

"I was working in the field when I heard the explosions of the earthquake, and I turned around and saw my house simply flatten in front of me," said Fu Qiuyue, a 70-year-old rapeseed farmer in Longmen.

Fu sat with her husband, Ren Dehua, in a makeshift shelter of logs and a plastic sheet on a patch of grass near where a helicopter had parked to reach their community of terraced grain and vegetable fields. She said the collapse of the house had crushed eight pigs to death. "It was the scariest sound I have ever heard," she said.

Aftershocks continue

The quake -- measured by China's earthquake administration at magnitude 7.0 and by the U.S. Geological Survey at 6.6 -- struck shortly after 8 a.m. on Saturday. Tens of thousands of people moved into tents or cars, unable to return home or too afraid to go back as aftershocks continued to jolt the region.

The quake killed at least 186 people, left 21 missing and injured 11,393, the official Xinhua News Agency quoted the provincial emergency command centre as saying.

As in most natural disasters, the government mobilized thousands of soldiers and others, sending excavators and other heavy machinery as well as tents, blankets and other emergency supplies. Two soldiers died after their vehicle slid off a road and rolled down a cliff, state media reported.

The Chinese Red Cross said it had deployed relief teams with supplies of food, water, medicine and rescue equipment to the disaster areas.

Lushan, where the quake struck, lies where the fertile Sichuan plain meets foothills that eventually rise to the Tibetan plateau and sits atop the Longmenshan fault, where the 2008 quake struck.

The seat of Lushan county has been turned into a large refugee camp, with tents set up on open spaces, and volunteers doling out noodles and boxed meals to survivors from stalls and the backs of vans.

A large van with a convertible side served as a mobile bank with an ATM, military medical trucks provided X-rays for people with minor injuries, and military doctors administered basic first aid, applying iodine solution to cuts and examining bruises.

Patients with minor ailments were lying in tents in the yard of the local hospital, which was wrecked by the quake, with the most severely injured patients sent to the provincial capital. With a limited water supply and buildings inaccessible, sanitation is a problem for the survivors.

Sunday 21 April 2013

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/21/china-earthquake.html