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Series Of Bizarre Natural
Events Preceded Massive Earthquakes In China
YOUR
NEW REALITY
Thursday, May 15, 2008
This story from the Times
Online pings the word 'conspiracy' to these stories of
weirdness before the 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit China a
few days ago, but such stories are not rare. In fact, animals
acting strangely before earthquakes hit is fairly common.
From the London
Times:
One blogger from Shandong province, in eastern China, wrote
that more than a month ago, he went to his local earthquake
resesarch centre several times to report that his animals
had been disturbed and restless.
But, he wrote: "They not only ridiculed me, they accused
me of making up stories."
The Chutian Metropolis Daily reported that on April 26,
80,000 tonnes of water suddenly drained from a large pond
in Enshi, Hubei province. The province shares a border with
Chongqing Municipality, which was devastated by the earthquake
on Monday.
On May 10, a Sichuan-based newspaper, the West China Metropolis
Daily, reported that hundreds of migrating toads descended
upon the streets of Mianyang, the second largest city in
the province which neighbours Wenchuan County, the epicentre
of the earthquake.
In the city of Mianzhu, 60 miles from the epicentre, bloggers
pointed to reports just weeks before the earthquake of a
mass migration of more than one million butterflies.
On May 10, a Sichuan-based newspaper, the
West China Metropolis Daily, reported that hundreds of migrating
toads (below) descended upon the streets of Mianyang, the
second largest city in the province which neighbours Wenchuan
County, the epicentre of the earthquake.
(Article continues below)
The China quakes have killed more than 15,000 people, more
than 25,000 remain trapped under collapsed buildings, schools
and apartment blocks as this is written, and 30,000 to 60,000
are missing. More than 1 million people are believed to have
lost their homes.
The scale of the disaster and loss is staggering :
"The losses have been severe," said
Wang Yi, who heads an armed police unit sent into the epicentre
zone. "Some towns basically have no houses left. They
have all been razed."
At least 7700 people died in the small town of Yingxiu
alone. Only 2300 survived there.
Across Sichuan, countless thousands more people
are missing or buried under the rubble of homes, schools and
factories.
The Premier, Wen Jiabao, said 100,000 military personnel
and police had been mobilised. "Time is life,"
he told rescuers.
Hundreds of survivors were pulled from rubble
in Beichuan county yesterday, including five kindergarten
children who were carried up the mountain road towards the
city of Mianyang.
The road into Beichuan is blocked by boulders the size
of houses and it takes would-be rescuers one hour to walk
three kilometres.
Hardly a building remains untouched, and many
have been buried beneath avalanches from the towering mountains
on either side.
Remarkably, the Chinese government has managed to turn an
appalling natural disaster into an international PR coup,
by ramming almost the entire force of its rescue services
and military into emergency service and allowing state media
to run hours of footage of people being dug out of collapsed
buildings and apartment blocks.
As this
New York Times report explains, international criticism
of China over its anti-free speech Olympics agenda and its
brutalisation of Tibetans has disappeared from most media
in the past 48 hours, replaced by stories of the Chinese government
responding swiftly to the disaster :
Mothers wailing over the bodies of their children. Emergency
workers scrambling across pancaked buildings. And a grim-faced
political leader comforting the stricken and reassuring
an anguished nation.
While such scenes are a staple of catastrophes in much
of the world, the rescue effort playing nonstop on Chinese
television is remarkable for a country that has a history
of concealing the scope of natural calamities and then bungling
its response.
...China’s Communist Party leaders are
keenly aware that their approach to the earthquake will be
closely watched at home and abroad. And after two bruising
months of criticism from the West over its handling of Tibetan
unrest, the government can ill afford another round of criticism
as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in August.
...if China manages to handle a big natural disaster better
than the United States handled Hurricane Katrina, the achievement
may underscore Beijing’s contention that its largely
nonideological brand of authoritarianism can deliver good
government as well as fast growth.
Dali Yang, the director of the East Asian Institute in
Singapore, said the government might have come to the realization
that openness and accountability could bolster its legitimacy
and counter growing anger over corruption, rising inflation
and the disparity between the urban rich and the rural poor.
“I think their response to this disaster
shows they can act, and they can care,” he said. “They
seem to be aware that a disaster like this can pull the country
together and bring them support.”
The videos of rescue workers clambering over wreckage, hauling
out the living and the dead, and racing the injured out of
the disaster zones, along with footage of officials helping
out and consoling the devastated, were filmed, packaged and
distributed around the world by China's state propaganda services.
The videos ran on every major TV news channel or program across
the EU, the UK, the US and Australia, and the message from
the Chinese government was
clear : "This is how you run rescue and recovery missions."
The contrast with the Bush White House's 'whatever' attitude
to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is stunning.
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