♥
The guy recounts what happened during the quake. His teacher immediately evacuated all the students, made sure everyone was rescued such as going back into the school building to the first floor to rescue someone before rushing to save her daughter, who was trapped under a collapsed building. That teacher dug through the rubble with her/his bare hands continuously through the night, and a team joined him/her when day came. Even when that team was replaced by another team and they still continued digging , they could not reach the girl. Throughout the digging, though, they could still hear the girl's voice. Then, they heard it no more. She had been buried alive and squashed to death.
There have been many cases of survivors making the tough decision to save others who can be more easily rescued instead of saving their loved one. There was a lady who was buried on the 3rd floor of a collapsed building, and she knew that her husband was buried even deeper below, the 1st floor. However, she knew that the machinery to remove the debris and rubble was not available yet, so she told the rescuers to leave her husband to save others, until the machinery came. The machinery took 5 days to come. I'm not too sure whether her husband came out alive or not. But I read in the newspapers today that there is a high risk of survivors dying even after they've been rescued from under the rubble.
Quote from The Sunday Times, World, pg 14:
" DANGER OF CRUSH SYNDROME
Washington - For people trapped under earthquake wreckage like in China, a successful rescue often marks the beginning - not the end- of the danger. Crushed muscle tissue can flood the bloodstream with toxic substances that can kill within a few hours. Even if a person avoids that problem, kidney failure caused by the toxins is often fatal within a few weeks. "Crush syndrome", the collective name for these problems, is second only to the trauma from falling debris as the cause of death in earthquakes. While the numbers vary, it is said that up to 10 per cent of people who make it to the hospital end up with acute renal failure from crush injuries. About half need dialysis to survive. The release of the damaging substance is the result of mechanical stretching of crushed muscles and the death of tissue because of insufficient blood. The damage often begins only when a survivor is extricated. Until then, the debris functions as a tourniquet, effectively isolating the pinned body part."
One of the girls being interviewed tries to recount what she saw after the quake. There were hands sticking out of the piles of rubble, sometimes legs, or just the head, or maybe the upper torso of the body. All of them were bloodied. For some, it was hard to discern how it looked like originally. There were hands all bloodied with the nails all gone as the survivors try to dig themselves out from the wreckage. There were faces unrecognisable, after being squashed and deformed by the heavy rubble piled on top of them. At this point, the interviewer told her to stop. She didn't want them to remember such terrible things anymore, and she herself (and she believed the audience too) could not bear to imagine the disastrous scene.
Another remembers how the parents would come to the school compounds to search for their children. She waited, and waited, watching all her other friends meeting up with their loved one, but her mother never came. All three of them had been orphaned due to this earthquake.
At the end of the interview, they stood together, presumingly to take a photo. Then one of the girls started choking up. To her, she felt really bad because the three of them are safe and talking happily in Beijing, while there were still many others still buried in Sichuan, and those poor people may not have had the chance to eat a biscuit, or to drink a sip of water for the past few days at all.
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan had a combined charity show at the same time tonight. Around 7-10. They showed the pictures, sang, interviewed soldiers and raised funds. Last time I saw, Taiwan raised about 1.864 billion, and Hong Kong around 8 billion. China's show interviewed two soldiers who came back from Sichuan. One guy recounted his experience in getting to Wenchuan. They took 31 hours to reach the epicenter of the quake in Wenchuan, and that was all by foot. They kept going despite the raining of the rocks, heavy rain, uneven ground (due to the quake) and even when there was no ground, they crossed probably slippery streams. The roads were blocked, the damage was evident from the crushed vehicles along the road and the damaged buildings. They were shivering from cold, they had to keep ducking from the falling stones and rocks due to the constant quakes that continued (uncountable), but they never stopped nor slowed down on their way to Wenchuan. Because they knew, every minute was precious to those people trapped under the rubble. And they were the first to get to Wenchuan, and release reports of the extent of the quake to the rest of the world. The other soldier 's hometown was Sichuan. Out of 36 family members, 29 were still missing in Beichuan. But he's not giving up due to grief, and determined to keep on doing his job, because to him, everybody was family.
Also, on 19 May, 14:28, everyone in China will mourn for 3 minutes, during which all activity will stop, and the cars,trains,ships and air raid alarm will sound.
"为表达全国各族人民对四川汶川大地震遇难同胞的深切哀悼，国务院决定，2008年5月19日至21日为全国哀悼日。在此期间，全国和各驻外机构下半旗志哀，停止公共娱乐活动，外交部和我国驻外使领馆设立吊唁簿。5月19日14时28分起，全国人民默哀3分钟，届时汽车、火车、舰船鸣笛，防空警报鸣响。"
Oh, there was another piece of information regarding the appearance of Earthquake clouds. Apparently, there are appearances of strange clouds before earthquakes. They are long, like the trails airplanes leave behind, just that thicker and of different colors at the same time (orange, white, grey). Also, the intersection or start of the clouds appear to the epicenter of the quake.
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Nevertheless, googling for info on these clouds have came up with the "Hot Air Paradox" which declaims the earthquake cloud theory. I don't quite know what it really is about, no time to read. I might update more about this next time though. If you're interested just google "earthquake clouds".
There're just too many things to say. Below are some links which you can go to to look.
http://news.ifeng.com/special/0512earthquake/
http://news.sohu.com/s2008/dizhen/
http://www.china-quake.com/China%20Sichuan%20earthquake%20cloud.php
Monday, May 19, 2008
I've been watching the Sichuan earthquake reports on cabletv the whole night, and it's really quite sad. I started watching 凤凰中文电视台 when a lady was interviewing three teenage survivors (2 girls, 1 guy) from Wen Chuan, Bei Chuan and another earthquake area. They were being interviewed in Beijing. I shall attempt to remember bits and pieces of what they said and try to present it here, with extra bits of other info I read or watched somewhere else. I'll write in 3rd person.The guy recounts what happened during the quake. His teacher immediately evacuated all the students, made sure everyone was rescued such as going back into the school building to the first floor to rescue someone before rushing to save her daughter, who was trapped under a collapsed building. That teacher dug through the rubble with her/his bare hands continuously through the night, and a team joined him/her when day came. Even when that team was replaced by another team and they still continued digging , they could not reach the girl. Throughout the digging, though, they could still hear the girl's voice. Then, they heard it no more. She had been buried alive and squashed to death.
There have been many cases of survivors making the tough decision to save others who can be more easily rescued instead of saving their loved one. There was a lady who was buried on the 3rd floor of a collapsed building, and she knew that her husband was buried even deeper below, the 1st floor. However, she knew that the machinery to remove the debris and rubble was not available yet, so she told the rescuers to leave her husband to save others, until the machinery came. The machinery took 5 days to come. I'm not too sure whether her husband came out alive or not. But I read in the newspapers today that there is a high risk of survivors dying even after they've been rescued from under the rubble.
Quote from The Sunday Times, World, pg 14:
" DANGER OF CRUSH SYNDROME
Washington - For people trapped under earthquake wreckage like in China, a successful rescue often marks the beginning - not the end- of the danger. Crushed muscle tissue can flood the bloodstream with toxic substances that can kill within a few hours. Even if a person avoids that problem, kidney failure caused by the toxins is often fatal within a few weeks. "Crush syndrome", the collective name for these problems, is second only to the trauma from falling debris as the cause of death in earthquakes. While the numbers vary, it is said that up to 10 per cent of people who make it to the hospital end up with acute renal failure from crush injuries. About half need dialysis to survive. The release of the damaging substance is the result of mechanical stretching of crushed muscles and the death of tissue because of insufficient blood. The damage often begins only when a survivor is extricated. Until then, the debris functions as a tourniquet, effectively isolating the pinned body part."
One of the girls being interviewed tries to recount what she saw after the quake. There were hands sticking out of the piles of rubble, sometimes legs, or just the head, or maybe the upper torso of the body. All of them were bloodied. For some, it was hard to discern how it looked like originally. There were hands all bloodied with the nails all gone as the survivors try to dig themselves out from the wreckage. There were faces unrecognisable, after being squashed and deformed by the heavy rubble piled on top of them. At this point, the interviewer told her to stop. She didn't want them to remember such terrible things anymore, and she herself (and she believed the audience too) could not bear to imagine the disastrous scene.
Another remembers how the parents would come to the school compounds to search for their children. She waited, and waited, watching all her other friends meeting up with their loved one, but her mother never came. All three of them had been orphaned due to this earthquake.
At the end of the interview, they stood together, presumingly to take a photo. Then one of the girls started choking up. To her, she felt really bad because the three of them are safe and talking happily in Beijing, while there were still many others still buried in Sichuan, and those poor people may not have had the chance to eat a biscuit, or to drink a sip of water for the past few days at all.
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan had a combined charity show at the same time tonight. Around 7-10. They showed the pictures, sang, interviewed soldiers and raised funds. Last time I saw, Taiwan raised about 1.864 billion, and Hong Kong around 8 billion. China's show interviewed two soldiers who came back from Sichuan. One guy recounted his experience in getting to Wenchuan. They took 31 hours to reach the epicenter of the quake in Wenchuan, and that was all by foot. They kept going despite the raining of the rocks, heavy rain, uneven ground (due to the quake) and even when there was no ground, they crossed probably slippery streams. The roads were blocked, the damage was evident from the crushed vehicles along the road and the damaged buildings. They were shivering from cold, they had to keep ducking from the falling stones and rocks due to the constant quakes that continued (uncountable), but they never stopped nor slowed down on their way to Wenchuan. Because they knew, every minute was precious to those people trapped under the rubble. And they were the first to get to Wenchuan, and release reports of the extent of the quake to the rest of the world. The other soldier 's hometown was Sichuan. Out of 36 family members, 29 were still missing in Beichuan. But he's not giving up due to grief, and determined to keep on doing his job, because to him, everybody was family.
Also, on 19 May, 14:28, everyone in China will mourn for 3 minutes, during which all activity will stop, and the cars,trains,ships and air raid alarm will sound.
"为表达全国各族人民对四川汶川大地震遇难同胞的深切哀悼，国务院决定，2008年5月19日至21日为全国哀悼日。在此期间，全国和各驻外机构下半旗志哀，停止公共娱乐活动，外交部和我国驻外使领馆设立吊唁簿。5月19日14时28分起，全国人民默哀3分钟，届时汽车、火车、舰船鸣笛，防空警报鸣响。"
Oh, there was another piece of information regarding the appearance of Earthquake clouds. Apparently, there are appearances of strange clouds before earthquakes. They are long, like the trails airplanes leave behind, just that thicker and of different colors at the same time (orange, white, grey). Also, the intersection or start of the clouds appear to the epicenter of the quake.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Nevertheless, googling for info on these clouds have came up with the "Hot Air Paradox" which declaims the earthquake cloud theory. I don't quite know what it really is about, no time to read. I might update more about this next time though. If you're interested just google "earthquake clouds".
There're just too many things to say. Below are some links which you can go to to look.
http://news.ifeng.com/special/0512earthquake/
http://news.sohu.com/s2008/dizhen/
http://www.china-quake.com/China%20Sichuan%20earthquake%20cloud.php