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China's earthquake disaster.

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Woxxy:
I'll just get some main points from the article, that you can find in full forum here: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiap ... index.html


--- Quote ---JIANGYOU, China (CNN) -- The death toll from Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake in central China exceeded 12,000 Tuesday, as rescue workers frantically tried to pull victims from the rubble and clear roads so relief can be delivered.

The soldiers estimated 3,000 people of the town's population of 12,000 survived the quake.They also reported more than 70 percent of the roads in the town were damaged, and almost all bridges had collapsed. On Monday, rescuers were stranded outside Wenchuan because of roads blocked by boulders and rocks.

Li Chengyun, vice governor of Sichuan, said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon the death toll was based on incomplete figures tallied by 4 p.m.He said another 26,206 people were injured and as many as 3.5 million homes were destroyed. More than 25,000 people were trapped under rubble, most of them -- 18,645 -- in Mianyang City, about 30 miles northeast of the epicenter, according to Xinhua.

A Chinese Civil Affairs Ministry official said his country welcomed foreign donations of money and materials, but it was not ready for outside teams of rescue and relief workers because its transportation system could not handle the additional traffic.

Communication with survivors near the epicenter has been difficult because of broken telecommunication lines and poor weather. An official using a satellite phone did give an initial report that about a third of all buildings had collapsed and another third were seriously damaged, Xinhua said.

An expert told CNN the earthquake, which struck at 2:28 p.m. Monday, was the largest the region has seen "for over a generation."
--- End quote ---


I'm not really an earthquake expert, but to think, most of deaths and injuries(of course) were made by being under the destroyed houses. Also, all bridges collapsed, industries got destroyed (let's also add, the chemical industry that killed hundreds of people, for what I heard). Did this city-place have any anti-earthquake houses and infrastructures?

In my opinion, this is not just result of a sure, dramatic, earthquake, but also caused by buildings not made properly.

Beside my senseless words, let's share a bit about this, because having guildies who just noticed is like lol.

HolyRinoa:
I hear about it already. I think there are far over 12k death people afther all.
These are just first calculated numbers.
Of course most of the people got killed by houses and bridges and all these things,
but mainly so many got killed because china hasn't got any usefull earthquake save houses.
Sure in the main towns are some buildings, wich are save but most of the houses are old or very easy ones. So it is easy to get em down.
As i heard, did people notice late , to late, about the coming earthquake. Even if there were many profs and people, who did know early,
but thats because of the old and used out villages and towns. China has many high builded up towns but also very old ones.
And warning such a big amout of people like the ones in china isn't easy either.

gebakkenvis:
It's quite horrible for them.
Yeah, there are just too many to be warned in advance. I bet if it was a smaller area or less people, warning would be way easier.
I wonder how this will affect the olympics.

guorbatschow:
the area isnt known for having frequent earthquakes. people arent rich. you cant expect them to invest much money into earthquake-proof buildings when they have better things to spend on.

plus, 7.9 is like really really rare, and also of course, extraordinarily powerful. im sure any normal house in europe wouldnt stay unharmed if hit by an earthquake like that either.

it probably wont affect the olympics much.

it could be worse. it could be like in myanmar. but it isnt.

gebakkenvis:
I see.

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