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Survivors blame corruption, shoddy construction and cost cutting for the collapse of so many 'tofu buildings' – and even state media outlets are asking questions
GEOFFREY YORK
DUJIANGYAN, CHINA — The bodies of the children were lined up in a long row in the mud of a basketball court, just outside the flattened school. Every few minutes, another corpse was brought out of the rubble, carried on a wooden door, covered in rags.
In a futile attempt at privacy, the bodies were sheltered by beach umbrellas or pup tents, incongruously set up in the mud. Grieving parents sat wailing or numb in tiny school chairs beside the bodies. In the Chinese tradition, they burned paper money and lit candles and incense sticks for the victims. Then, in an explosion of firecrackers, they bid a final farewell to their children.
The death toll in Monday's earthquake in Sichuan province is still soaring. More than 40,000 people are dead, missing or buried in the rubble, according to the latest count. And with dangerous cracks appearing in several hydro dams and reservoirs around the earthquake zone, another disaster could be looming.
But while rescue crews fought to reach the victims, awkward questions were being asked about the tragedy. One man, gazing at the corpse of his nine-year-old cousin, said he had disturbing evidence that could explain the collapse of the five-storey Juyuan school building, along with eight other schools in the region.
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Rescuers and volunteers work in the debris to search for earthquake survivors in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province, China, on Wednesday. (China Photos/Getty Images)
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The man, who gave his surname as Ren, is a 32-year-old steel worker who has worked for a decade in the local construction industry. He said he always knew that the Juyuan school was a disaster in waiting. Local officials, he said, had pocketed money that was budgeted for the school, while a private construction company had saved money by cutting corners on the project.
After the temblor, when he picked up a chunk of concrete from the flattened school, he was appalled by the evidence of shoddy construction. "It crumbled very easily," he said.
To boost its profits, the company used iron instead of steel in many parts of the construction of the building, Mr. Ren said. It cut back on the size and number of steel braces in the cement foundation slabs. And it used cheap materials to make the concrete walls, weakening the entire structure.
"The supervising agencies did not check to see if it met the national standards," he said.
Several hundred students died in the collapse of Juyuan school on Monday.
One of them was Mr. Ren's cousin, Li Xianmin.
"I felt pain when I saw his body," Mr. Ren said.
"He was a good student and a good boy. His class had 65 students.
"All of them died, except for one boy who jumped from the second floor and another who had asked for leave on that day."
Many other survivors were convinced that corruption had played a role in determining which buildings collapsed and which were unscathed. One man pointed to a new building whose first floor had collapsed, even as older buildings around it were intact. "They used fewer bricks in the new building, so they could earn more money," he said.
The shoddily constructed buildings are commonly called "tofu buildings" because of their weak structural condition.
Even the state-controlled media are raising questions about unsafe construction of schools.
"We cannot afford not to raise uneasy questions about the structural quality of school buildings," the China Daily said in a commentary after the quake.
More than 48 hours after the earthquake, there were still miraculous discoveries of survivors in the rubble of some buildings.
At about 5 p.m. yesterday, a man named He Yang was found in a collapsed six-storey apartment building in Dujiangyan.
Doctors quickly set up an intravenous drip to keep him alive.
His mother and uncle were ecstatic, but then they realized that he was trapped and could not be easily rescued.
The rescue workers asked whether they could attempt a risky operation, using heavy equipment to move the rubble to reach him.
It was an agonizing dilemma.
His family members agreed to the rescue, knowing that he would be injured but at least would have a chance at life.
Others accused the government of misallocating its rescue efforts, giving higher priority to government officials and wealthy people who were trapped in buildings. "My sister is inside there," said a crying woman outside the collapsed six-storey building.
"We could hear her, but the rescue workers did not try to rescue her until we knelt on the ground to beg them. This morning they stopped their work and I couldn't hear my sister's voice any more."
Hundreds of military trucks and other vehicles were bringing emergency workers and supplies to Dujiangyan yesterday, but many survivors said there were shortages of food, water, tents and medicine.
One tea-house was filled with people sleeping on chairs, unable to find beds. "There's no water, no food," said Liu Li, a woman from Chengdu who came to Dujiangyan to help her mother. "We want someone to help us, but nobody is helping."
An assessment by Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), the French relief agency, concluded that medicine and food were urgently needed in the worst-hit parts of the earthquake zone. "Most pharmacies in the area were destroyed by the quake, and people are facing a dire shortage of medicines," it said.
THE POSTQUAKE SCENE
Soldiers and police are struggling to rescue tens of thousands of citizens still trapped under destroyed and damaged buildings after Monday's earthquake, while dams cracked by the tremblor threaten to inundate some areas.
Min River: There are serious problems with reservoirs on this river. A dame collapse would affect several power plants and be extremely dangerous to local population.
Chengdu Mianzhu: About people were pulled out alive from
Dujiangyan: Had the dam broken the city would have been inundated.
Yingxiu: Rescuers who hiked in found only 2,300 of the town's population of 10,000 had survived - 1,000 badly hurt. Food, medicine and drinking water was being parachuted in.
Zipingpu Dam: About 2,000 soldiers were sent to repair the dam, one of 391 damaged, and drain the reservoir behind it. It was declared safe.
Maoxian county: Two hydropower stations were seriously damaged.
Hanwang: The Mianzhu No. 3 Hospital was obliterated, and the seven-storey main Hanwang Hospital collapsed.
Shifang: More than 30,000 people were missing or out of reach and 2,500 confirmed dead in this city.
Qingchuan county: Students at a middle school were napping when the quake demolished the three-storey building. A total of 178 were confirmed dead in the rubble and 23 were missing.
Quake toll could climb to 50,000 (7千字)(落叶为风而舞 5-16 0:54 阅读 31)LUOSHUI TOWN, CHINA — China warned the death toll from this week's earthquake could soar to 50,000, while the government issued a public appeal Thursday for rescue equipment as it struggled to cope with the disaster.
More than 72 hours after the quake rattled central China, rescuers appeared to shift from poring through downed buildings for survivors to the grim duty of searching for bodies — with 10 million directly affected by Monday's temblor.
In Luoshui town — on the road to an industrial zone in Shifang city where two chemical plants collapsed, burying hundreds of people — troops used a mechanical shovel to dig a pit on a hilltop to bury the dead.
Police and militia in Dujiangyan pulverized rubble with cranes and backhoes while crews used shovels to pick around larger pieces of debris. On one side street, about a dozen bodies were laid on a sidewalk, while incense sticks placed in a pile of sand sent smoke into the air as a tribute and to dull the stench of death.
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Rescuers and volunteers work in the debris to search for earthquake survivors in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province, China, on Wednesday. (China Photos/Getty Images)
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The bodies were later lifted onto a flatbed truck, joining some half-dozen corpses. Ambulances sped past, sirens wailing, filled with survivors. Workers asked those left homeless to sign up for temporary housing, although it was unclear where they would live.
Not all hope of finding survivors was lost. After more than three days trapped under debris, a 22-year-old woman was pulled to safety in Dujiangyan. Covered in dust and peering out through a small opening, she was shown waving on state television shortly before being rescued.
"I was confident that you were coming to rescue me. I'm alive. I'm so happy," the unnamed woman said on CCTV.
One earthquake expert said the time for rescues was growing short.
"Generally speaking, anyone buried in an earthquake can survive without water and food for three days," said Gu Linsheng, a researcher with Tsinghua University's Emergency Management Research Center. "After that, it's usually a miracle for anyone to survive."
The confirmed death toll reached 19,509 on Thursday, up from the nearly 15,000 confirmed dead the day before, according to the Earthquake and Disaster Relief Headquarters of the State Council, the country's Cabinet. The council said deaths could rise to some 50,000, state TV reported.
The government issued an appeal to the Chinese public calling for donations of rescue equipment including hammers, shovels, demolition tools and rubber boats. The plea on the Ministry of Information Industry's Web Site said, for example, that 100 cranes were needed.
More than 130,000 soldiers and police joined the relief operation, Xinhua said.
"This is only a beginning of this battle, and a long way lies ahead of us," Vice Health Minister Gao Qiang told reporters in Beijing.
"We will never give up hope," he said. "For every thread of hope, our efforts will increase 100-fold. We will never give up."
Premier Wen Jiabao visited Qingchuan in northern Sichuan province, site of a collapsed school that buried dozens of children, to encourage doctors and nurses aiding the injured.
"The party and the government are grateful to you. The people need you," he said in footage shown on CCTV. "They see you as a relative. Every act and word of yours represents the government."
After days of refusing foreign relief workers, China accepted an offer from Japan to send a rescue team, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in an announcement posted on the ministry Web site.
Taiwan's Red Cross said China also agreed to accept a 20-person emergency relief team from the island. Taiwan is also sending a cargo plane to Chengdu with tents and medical supplies. The Air Macau plane will make a brief stop in Macau.
Taiwan and China, which split during civil war in 1949, have banned regular direct links and other formal contacts as political disputes persist.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies also issued an emergency appeal for medical help, food, water and tents.
Gu Qinghui, the federation's disaster management director for East Asia who visited Beichuan county near the epicentre, said more than 4 million homes were shattered across the quake area.
"The whole county has been destroyed. Basically there is no Beichuan county anymore," Gu said in Beijing, adding the death toll was sure to rise.
Forty-four counties and districts in Sichuan were severely hit, with about half of the 20 million people living there directly affected, Xinhua said.
On Thursday, electricity supplies were restored to most parts of Sichuan for the first time since the quake, though Beichuan county near the epicenter remained blacked out, Xinhua said.
Roads were cleared to two key areas that bore the brunt of the quake's force, with workers making it to the border of Wenchuan county at the epicenter and also through to Beichuan county, Xinhua reported.
Dujiangyan city was clogged with buses and trucks decked out with banners from companies saying they were offering aid to disaster victims. One tour bus was stuffed full of water bottles, cartons of biscuits and instant noodles.
Public donations so far have totalled $125-million in both cash and goods.
NBA star Yao Ming, China's most famous athlete, was planning to donate $285,000 to the relief effort, agent Erik Zhang said.
"My thoughts are with everyone back in my home country of China during this very dark and emotional time," Yao said in a statement from Houston, where he is recovering from a broken left foot with hopes of competing in the Beijing Olympics this August.
As the rescue effort gathered momentum, the depth of the problem of tens of thousands homeless stretched government resources.
North of Chengdu in Deyang, the largest town near the devastated areas of Hanwang and Mianyang, thousands of people have streamed into the city hospital since Monday, mostly with head or bone injuries.
Patients heavily wrapped in bandages and with cuts and bruises were huddled in canvas tents in the hospital's parking lot.
"Our doctors have worked continuously since Monday and people keep coming in. We have to keep strengthening our measures to keep up," said Luo Mingxuan, the Communist Party secretary of the hospital.
There were piles of donated clothing for survivors at the hospital and stands for them to make free telephone calls. Handwritten notes with names of the injured were posted on a board in front of the hospital's emergency section, where ambulances arrived every few minutes.
Also Thursday, a group of 33 American, British and French tourists were airlifted from Wolong, site of the world's most famous panda preserve, to the provincial capital of Chengdu, Xinhua reported. All were in good health, Xinhua said.
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