Quake rescuers battle to reach remote areas
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, April 23, 2013
After dynamiting through landslide-blocked roads, Chinese relief crews hurried food, water and other supplies into the rural hills of China's Sichuan Province yesterday, two days after an earthquake killed at least 192 people and injured more than 11,000.
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Soldiers move cartons of instant noodles in Sichuan Province's Lushan County. Helicopters airlifted relief supplies to Lushan and Baoxing counties in the earthquake-hit region yesterday afternoon. |
Rescuers reached the most cut-off communities in Baoxing and Lushan counties, though heavy machinery and trucks bearing supplies moved slowly along roads partly blocked by landslide debris. Repairmen hoisted ladders up against electrical poles to fix power lines.
The delivery of relief supplies, while not enough to meet all the demand, marked headway as frustrations grew among survivors.
Near an old house that had crumpled by the roadside in Lushan, about 2,000 people gathered early yesterday to complain about the lack of food. Some 20 minutes later a truck pulled up and distributed instant noodles. At another street corner, a truck handed out bottled water.
"We're so grateful for these donations," said Ji Yanzi, who was loading cartons of bottled water onto a three-wheeled vehicle to take to her family of 10, including aging parents.
"At this point, we don't have much except a tent we made ourselves and some food we were able to pull out from our apartment."
Large parts of Lushan and other towns have been turned into makeshift encampments for people whose homes were damaged or destroyed.
Hope was fading for Li Anquan, a 47-year-old farmer and father of two, last seen two days ago and believed buried by a landslide.
Dozens of soldiers and rescue workers with sniffer dogs in Taiping town, northeast of Ya'an, were hard at work yesterday searching for Li and any other survivors.
"Time is passing quickly and the hope is little," said a rescue worker from Yunnan Province who had joined the search efforts yesterday.
With them was a dog used to find survivors in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, but it found nothing yesterday.
Access to villages in the mountains remained difficult with rocks blocking roads that had been difficult to navigate in the first place.
Rescue workers were using explosive to blast giant rocks that had rolled down the mountain in the aftermath of the quake.
"It's been two days and now we are having our first meal," said Sun Minglong, a sergeant with a military unit. They were the only troop to reach Taiping's Shengli Village yesterday.
"We have nothing to offer to the villagers but to search the homes one by one for survivors."
Taiping and neighboring Baosheng village about 8 kilometers away were among the places that saw the most damage. Survivors have built temporary shelters while they wait for relief supplies.
The villages can only be reached by people on motorcycles or on foot.
"We need power, Internet, medicine and everything," said Le Wenqing, a village doctor in Baosheng, as in front of him long lines of people waited to see him.
Sitting near chunks of concrete, bricks and a ripped orange sofa, Luo Shiqiang told how his grandfather was returning from feeding chickens when their house collapsed and crushed him to death.
"We lost everything in such a short time," the 20-year-old said. His cousin was injured in the collapse, but other family members were spared as they were working in the fields.
At the Lushan County seat, tents have been set up on open spaces, and volunteers doled out noodles and boxed meals to survivors from stalls and backs of vans.
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