Earthquake of a magnitude 7.8 reported in China *UPDATE* 'to top 50,000' killed

Lots of rock slides. Pictures of the blocked roads, etc.

This story is heart wrenching. My sincerest condolences to the families affected.

Originally posted by IchiNiSan
Unconfirmed report from some forums say that the pilots of the chopters making the damage reports are crying in Wenchuan. Flying in bad weather conditions one of them reported 95% of buildings collapsed and he could not see people moving....

Not seeing anthing is the worst thing... with the entire city without power/water the place is going to be a ghost town, and if no one saw/heard the chopper... then there may be no one there...

There has got to be many cities/towns that have been wiped off the mountain... if i am not mistaken, this region is one of the worst in the world for Mudslides... combine that with mountaion everywhere, and all cities being on the mountiains, and this has to be historicaly bad.

What is this "winter situation' you keep refering to? And what are some of the worst recored natual disastars in China?

My God

I just now learned of this event. 10,000 killed? Wow. This is horrible. I don't know what else to say. I hope the toll comes to a standstill soon, very soon...

Do you guys think this was the result of weather weapons? Scalar technology? Whatever, however, if it was someones evil doing, then I pray Mother Nature aims her trigger hand on those buildings instead next time...

reply to post by TKainZero


You are not aware? There were winter storms and extreme snowfalls during mid of January till beg February, with effect to be felt untill end of February all over China. Even in provinces which normally there were no snow, like Hunan, Anhui. It caused the railroad system to totally fall out, and hundreds of kilometres long traffic, thousands of people were trapped for days, some even one week more. Electricity and water were out in most areas, and hundreds of thousands of houses were destroyed because it could not hold the heavy snow on their roof, making millions homeless. This is next to the multiple times of it the houses damaged which barely gave shelter to the people. Literally hundreds of millions of people were affected one way or the other by these snowstorms. This was the ultimate proof that China is still an under-developed country. Not sure how much it was reported in the West, I presume not much...

Now i think about it, maybe a lot of buildings were weakened by the winter storms, so even easier to collapse now

The Great Tangshan Earthquake in 1976 is the deadliest Earthquake I heard with like a quarter million people killed.

I would have to surf on internet to look up other disasters. But there are always every year some natural disaster affecting thousands, sometimes millions.

Kind of natural disasters which I can recall:
-Flooding of the the two main rivers Yellow River of ChangJiang
-Typhoons in the Southern Provinces, causing flood and damages
-Earthquakes, last year one in the not so population-densed province Yunnan
-Diseases and Virusses, because of the densed population in very often under-developed areas, where people are normally lower educated and therefore less sense for health, cleanness and so on.
-Snow storms, usually in the Northern provinces, but now also central and southern provinces.
-We have a huge Gobi desert, with all the troubles related with for the provinces there.









[edit on 13/5/08 by IchiNiSan]

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
Do you guys think this was the result of weather weapons? Scalar technology? Whatever, however, if it was someones evil doing, then I pray Mother Nature aims her trigger hand on those buildings instead next time...

Just my opinion but I'd say absolutely no to some kind of human intervention in this case. China has been having earthquakes for millions of years and even in recorded history (and theirs is very long) there have been many which have had tragic consequences, including the worst one in the mid-sixteenth century which took over 800,000 lives... This region is a seismically-active part of our planet (which is mainly why there are mountains there as they were formed by uplift) and from time to time there are powerful quakes. It is a human tragedy resulting from a natural event...nothing more need be read into it.

reply to post by JustMike


I understand what you are saying. The geography of the mountains makes sense, and no doubt it's a highly seismic area to begin with. But there is definitely something to be said about the 2002+ stats that were posted earlier.

Sadly the death toll is now over 11,562,

Seems like the teams out there are very rapid and are doing a good job, UK teams are ready to go and our just waiting on a call from the chinese government,

Whats the weather like there? As im sure matter quite a bit in th rescue of this poor people,

Thw 100 Brits in the area have been located, according to the embassy,

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

Thanks for your comment...I follow your line of thinking as well...But seeing as this thread is in the "general" forum rather than a "conspiracy" one I think it's best if we focus on the tragedy of the quake and its effects, and on other possible similar events that have occurred (or may occur) as a result of the movement of the earth's various plates and other natural factors...

Most people affected by quakes are more concerned with how to deal with their results and help others, and I feel that the Chinese officials are doing the best they can under incredibly difficult and distressing circumstances... I still well recall the feelings of loss I had after my home burnt down some years ago and I was left with literally just the clothes I was wearing...and no-one was even injured... But to lose home, family members, friends, whole communities, jobs, simply all but life itself -- all in just a few moments -- I simply cannot imagine the impact, the utter wretchedness and grief, especially when it is the same for many, many thousands of people.

My heart truly goes out to the people of China...

Mike

Originally posted by asala
Whats the weather like there? As im sure matter quite a bit in th rescue of this poor people,

I just caught a live report from the region near the epicentre from John Vause of CNN...It's drizzly and cool (but not freezing)... Under these circumstances, cooler and slightly wet weather is far better from some perspectives than if it's baking hot and with no rain...People will need less drinking water and (thought it's awful to think about) some of those who are trapped also have a better chance of surviving until they can be rescued if they do not dehydrate so fast...Dehydration is one of the many dangers that places trapped people in great peril, even if they are uninjured...

On the other side, the low cloud makes it impossible in some places for choppers to fly or even for rescuers to parachute in...A lot of the rescuers are having to go in on foot...

We can only hope...and for those who pray...we keep praying...

Originally posted by asala
Whats the weather like there? As im sure matter quite a bit in th rescue of this poor people,

Quite a bit of rain I think after talking to a couple of our engineers based at our Chengdu office. Many of them live in older apartment buildings, many of which had to be evacuated due to damage which meant a night on the streets for many of our staff. The situation was made worse by rain during the night.
We are now looking at possibly moving some of the worst affected employees to Beijing temporarily. All travel to Chengdu for everyone except emergency personnel has been suspended but flights out are available.
Got another follow-up conference call with Chengdu and Beijing again at 2AM tomorrow morning (BST) so hopefully will get a better idea of how things are.

Very sad to see the death toll still rising. I expect it'll rise more over the next few days as rescuers get into some of the more badly affected or remote areas. The aftershocks still keep coming too which is going to put everyone on edge.

official death toll 11921 that means it is still rising 12,000 lost souls... and we were hoping for "only" 3000-5000....

it is becoming dark now here, so that will complicate rescue work again. And some experts are predicting even stronger aftershocks....

at least one rescue team from Hong Kong arrived, and a second one is being prepared.

the radio also said that the teams there are not ready to receive foreign teams yet, but will give the call anytime.

[edit on 13/5/08 by IchiNiSan]

reply to post by asala


almost all tours and foreign tourists are identified and located. hope there are not backpackers in the area of the epicenter.... and if, then they have left some message back home or friends what their route schedules are....

Official reports are claiming over 12000 casualties, 26000 wounded and another 9400 being buried, which they know off. Soldiers and rescue workers are trying to dig them out by using bare hands picking stone by stone.... At least 350,000 houses and buildings damaged and many of them collapsed... the epicenter is still not reached with over 60,000 people not contacted yet and latest news says another 100,000 people are trapped in another area, but they had contacted them no casualty reports....

very terrible pictures are being posted on Chinese forums... and TV footages show how devastating an Earthquake of this magnitude can be....

personnel, medicine, food, tents and so on are continuously flown in, and by train (they fixed the railroads!), also most of the highways are fixed for transportation, so logistics are getting smoother...

first reports of some Panda reservations says the Pandas there are A-okay, only one reservation with 60+ pandas can not be contacted yet due to communication line....

animals in zoos are still acting extremely crazy even now, which might say that there are more bigger aftershocks to be expected....

EDIT: The first rescue team reached the epicenter! And rescued over 1000 wounded by now, more rescuers are getting in....



[edit on 13/5/08 by IchiNiSan]

I am seeing security camera footage (on liveleak.com) that shows the initial earthquake lasted over 3 minutes.

Look at this one:

www.liveleak.com...

If this is so this is absolutely mind boggling!

Have any other world governments expressed their condolances and offered support yet? I haven't seen it if anyone has. So far, I am very impressed with the way China is handling it. I just hope other nations reach out to them.

reply to post by Karlhungis


Maybe not reported in your place, but so far I know the world have shown their sympathy and offered supports. CCTV1 deliberately dedicated a part of the reporting to all the great support from the Westen & worldwide media and reactions from world leaders like Bush and so on, despite the recent uneasiness between China and Western MSM. This is good, maybe very very maybe we might put aside certain differences and have a first step in working on creating more mutual understanding in this tiny world full of sufferings. Hope that the world can see that China is by far not a developed country yet, we are (like I said hundreds of times before in ATS since last year I joined this community) still an under-developed country in the wake of developing....

More support in the form of money, material and rescue teams might come later. Although I still believe we have enough manpower with some strong and effective leaderships, it is the medicine, and certain equipments which we are missing.

reply to post by IchiNiSan


Thanks for the response. I am glad to hear it.

reply to post by Karlhungis


Here is a picture of Indian school children mourning for the victims, posted in one of the biggest Chinese news site.




Our thanx to everyone who show sympathy and support for my brothers and sisters.....


[edit on 13/5/08 by IchiNiSan]

BBC is saying the toll has gone over 12,000. 18,000 others are said to be buried under debris and rubble just in Mianyang. 3,629 of those have been confirmed dead. If that many died in that area from being buried, how many more of the 18,000 could have met the same fate?

I wouldn't be surprised if the death toll hit 25,000 when all is said and done. Given that over 25,000 have died not too far south in Burma recently, this is just awful.

I also wish everyone would put aside their politics for just a few minutes. We all know the world governments are playing the political and economic game even as these disasters rage on, and the consequences of them playing those games falls on us. But that doesn't mean we have to play those games as well.

These are human beings just like you and I. They feel pain and suffering just like you and I. They have families, friends and children just like you and I. They work for a living to provide for themselves and their loved ones just like you and I. Looking different, speaking different languages and living within different imaginary borders doesn't change all of that.

I'm not saying you have to break down into tears and say a prayer for them, but at the very least, show a little decency.

I hope the death toll doesn't go any higher but I know that, unfortunately, thats not going to happen. Hopefully the Chinese Government can feel some sort of sympathy and help these survivors get back on their feet when this disaster is over.

It seems Earth is beginning to hit back from the way we've treated it since the beginning of the Industrial Age. Global Warming or not, I think we've gone a little too far and upset the calm balance that Earth has been in for a long time.

I'm sure someone has already posted this BBC article, but here it is anyway: news.bbc.co.uk...

[edit on 5/13/08 by NovusOrdoMundi]

Waking this morning I looked into my heart and saw the people half a world away, I am so sad to see such an end to so many so swiftly.
It has only just begun and for those that see this happening as distant, just wait nature will have her way with us all.

Be sensitive to each other for now, every person has a center which is connected to all of our earth brothers and sisters, and we are all experiencing these past days in our own ways.

When something this unexpected happens we move into our animal state, a state where the flight instinct comes in naturally. But for all of these people, where to go? It must have been such a moment.