Sichuan Earthquake Update

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

MBL has donated 4000 pounds as the first part of the fund raised in MBL’s project “Help Children in China Quake” to China Children and Teenagers’ Fund (CCTF). The following picture is the invoice from CCTF. CCTF will further report the use of the charity fund and MBL will also keep on reporting about the usage of the fund raised.

Xinhua News Agency reports:

BEIJING, June 26 (Xinhua) — Vice Premier Li Keqiang said here Thursday that China’s quake relief work had already entered into anew phase and future work would focus on resettlement of the affected people and the post-quake reconstruction.

He made the remarks at a reception held by the Chinese Foreign Ministry to express the country’s gratitude for international assistance in the quake relief efforts.

According to the latest statistics, more than 160 countries and 10 international organizations offered funds, materials and personnel assistance to China.

Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said the funds and materials donated by the international community, as well as the rescue and medical teams dispatched by some countries, made great contribution to help the country win the victory.

Read the full story.

source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20080523TDY05312.htm

The Yomiuri Shimbun
(May. 23, 2008)

MIANYANG, China–A Chinese kindergarten teacher has opened a school at a camp in Mianyang, China, for children displaced by the recent earthquake that struck Sichuan Province.

Zhu Xia, 32, visited an area hit by the quake in the Anxian district, about 40 kilometers from the center of Mianyang, on Saturday to donate goods to quake evacuees.

While at a camp for displaced people, she noticed that children looked depressed, and were wandering around with nothing to do. She concluded that they were traumatized by the physical injuries they suffered in the quake, or because they had lost family members.

As Zhu’s kindergarten in Chengdu is currently closed due to the risk of aftershocks, she decided to offer classes to the children at the camp.

On Sunday, she read a picture book to a class of eight. On Monday, 30 children gathered for her class. By Tuesday, the number jumped to about 150.

The school, which is held outside, has been named “Yang Guang” (Sunshine) school. As there are no chairs or desks, the children attending Yang Guang sit on the ground, surrounded by tents set up for the evacuees.

When a group of Yomiuri Shimbun reporters covering the earthquake visited the school, children, who were taking an English class, shouted, “Happy!”

“Though the children were fearful of aftershocks, it now appears they feel safer by being with others of a similar age,” Zhu said.

Zhu returned to Chengdu on Wednesday, and volunteers from Hong Kong have taken over.

At the school, children are taught how to prevent diseases while they are living in the tents and how to react toward children who lost their parents in the disaster.

The school has made children in the district far happier, and adults look relieved when they drop by the school and see their children in class, residents said.

Zhao Lin, 11, who lost his parents in the earthquake, still looked depressed, but said, “Now I know I’m not alone.”

Children adopted from China are moved by the scenes of Sichuan earthquake and started to raise fund for the quake victims. Several organisations, like Half and Sky Foundation, Our Chinese Daughter Foundation, and Families with Children from China, New York Chapter, are also involved in earthquake relief fundraising.

A small body frozen in a moment, surrounded by rubble. A terrified, bleeding young girl carried on a stretcher. Sobbing mothers clutching photos of children lost to the earthquake in China.

“There for the grace of God go our daughters, and us,” said Sandi Janusch, who adopted 7-year-old Kaili from China as a baby.

Moved by images of the tragedy and pulled by an invisible red thread that — as Chinese legend holds — forever connects her to her daughter’s birth country, Janusch wanted to do something, anything, to help.

So she, Kaili and some friends baked. A lot. Together they raised $2,400 for relief efforts by making and selling gourmet fortune cookies — espresso and jasmine tea were among the specialty flavors sold eight to a decorated box — in Calgary, Canada.

Where there are Chinese girls adopted by parents halfway around the world, there are bake sales, garage sales, dance performances, memorial services and cash campaigns raising money for earthquake victims in the country that united their families.

The amounts raised are tiny in contrast to the nearly 69,000 people dead, estimated 18,000 missing and millions left homeless by the earthquake, but reaching out to their birth country is priceless to the girls and their families.

Read more here.

CSSA-UK Fundraising Performance for Students in China’s Earthquake Area

http://512yiyan.cssauk.org.uk/

Date and Time: 07, June, 2008, 19:00－21:00，
Place: Old Theatre, LSE Old Building, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

Ticket Price: 3pounds.

Seats limited.

Ticket office: 512yiyan@googlemail.com

Translate by candice zhou

Today is May 27^th. It’s about half a month since the earthquake.

Many people become “famous” in the earthquake, “Cola boy” Xue Xiao is one of them.  This 17 years old boy, who was buried in the ruins for 80 hours, is famous for the first sentence “I want to drink Cola.” when he was rescued.   Many people came to hospital to see Xue. But for him, the hurts in the earthquake would once recovered, however, the amputated right arm wound never be recovered.  His doctor said,” Xue made the agreement fingerprint of operation by his left hand, at that moment, he didn’t drop a tear.  Yesterday Xue told the journalist, “ I want to go to university.”

press “read more” button to read more…. (more…)

Rescuers are preparing to dynamite the barrier of a swelling quake lake, which has posed a new threat after a devastating 8.0-magnitude temblor ravaged southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Helicopters had airdropped professionals and materials for the operation by 7:49 a.m. Monday onto the dam of the barrier lake at Tangjiashan in Beichuan County, which was formed by landslides that blocked a local river known as Jianhe after the May 12 earthquake.

Sunday’s adverse weather hampered the operation, but the weather and visibility were fine on Monday morning, said a spokesman with the Mianyang Airport Headquarters for Quake Relief Flight Operation.

A Mig-26 helicopter had carried a large bulldozer from Leigu in the vicinity of Tangjiashan which could only be reached on foot currently.

As a backup operation, a group of armed policemen arrived on foot at the Tangjiashan lake area at 00:35 a.m. Monday and set to work immediately. They would assault the lake barrier in case bad weather and low visibility continued to hamper airdrop efforts.

(more…)

Keeping love alive for a very, very long haul
By Fu Jing
Updated: 2008-05-27 07:39

Like many kids, one-year-and-half old Zhong Minhan loves yo-yo. At 2:28 pm of May 12, she was awakened from her afternoon nap, promptly got up and sat down at bed enjoying the two-minute swing with smiles.

And even now, she does not know that the yo-yo has claimed thousands of lives in many cities, towns and villages of her home province Sichuan. But she does know that she could not see her father Zhong Ying easily during the past two weeks as he has always been at the frontline handing out food, medicines and even worked as a guide for journalists.

Zhong, aged 28, is part of the influx of volunteers extending their helping hands to those parents who lost their kids and students who lost their parents to the quake, the aftershocks, landslides and floods of quake lakes.

With him as a guide, our China Daily reporting team reached several devastated towns in high mountains, sometimes by foot, walking on broken railways and twisted bridges and finally had talks with survivors escaping from their homes in the dense forests.

Zhong is not only a guide for our photographer and me. He was so warm-hearted that every time we came back from Deyang, our car would be filled with water, food, clothes gathered by him from his relatives or friends.

And he told me: “In this hard time, you journalists should not only work for your paper but give help and aid at the same time.”

I could not agree with him more.

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the-earthquake-dont-know-and-do-know

Our hearts have been sadden and touched by the recent earthquake in China .
. . especiallly sad to have lost so many school children.

Attached is a power-point presenation that was sent to us a few days
following the quake by one of our professor friends at Nanjing University.
It shows the feeling there.

Just want to share it with you.  And thanks becky, my dear US teacher when I was in nanjing University, for the sharing.

A candle vigil was held in Glasgow city centre on 25 May in memory of the victims of Sichuan earthquake.