I’m not the only one to note the strange synchronicity of Ed’s post on recent Japanese earthquakes, and the very large tremor which rocked China this week. It feels a bit strange to blog about a part of Asia, and to not, at the very least, acknowledge the human tragedy, particularly since China has made the unusual gesture of asking other nations for help.
NPR has a rather harrowing, but gripping account of a family’s search for their two year old son. I can’t seem to embed the player, but you can hop over to the site, and click the “Listen Now” button to hear the narration, which will surely put a human face on this sprawling wreck of a story.
On Monday, Fu Guanyu dropped off her young son, Wang Zhilu, at his grandparents’ house so she could go to work. Minutes later, the earthquake hit.
She rushed back home and saw their apartment building in ruins. She says soldiers came right away to help, but they had no equipment.
– Two year old lost, probably crushed to death and the parents will give in to grief and lose their desire to live. –
OK. Now for our next bit of entertainment….a Kitty golf ball carrier!
All better. Now I can go to sleep.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake in China’s Sichuan province is a major disaster of mass proportions and the human suffering will be huge, the survivors will have to deal with the aftermath for many years to come, maybe even for the rest of their natural life’s.
The news reporting coming from the earthquake area is mainly via the Chinese media which the western media have to translate, which may not be the most effective reporting especially if the Chinese government is manipulating the news which its prone to do.
With the total collapse of so many schools, hospitals and public buildings in a known earthquake region raises important questions about the construction of these buildings.
Animals and other non human creatures seem to know when an earthquake is about to happen.
In the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, in Kobe City, Japan, there are many strange tales like that. Like all the birds disappeared hours before the earthquake struck. Just prior to the earthquake, a barking dog woke its owner and would not stop until the owner took the dog outside very early in the morning. Shortly after, the house of the owner totally collapsed in the quake. The dog saved the mans life.
The Chutian Metropolis Daily reported that on the morning of April 26, water in a big pond in Enshi, a city about 400 km away from the provincial capital Wuhan, suddenly whirled downward, accompanied by a loud noise. Within four hours, about 80 thousand tons of water drained away.
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 neighbors Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the earthquake.
In the city of Mianzhu, 60 miles from the epicenter, bloggers pointed to reports just weeks before the earthquake of a mass migration of more than one million butterflies.
Earthquakes were a sensitive topic in imperial China, where they traditionally signaled the end of a corrupt dynasty. The Tangshan earthquake of 1976 killed up to 240,000 people, less than two months before Mao Zedong died. Eight is normally a lucky number for Chinese, but the earthquake came 88 days before the 2008 Olympic Games were slated to start in Beijing on the 8th of the eighth month at 8 p.m. 2008 is fast becoming a very bad year for China.
Thanks zichi, this earthquake in China is probably 7.9 magnitude. Its power size is about 10 times bigger than that of Great Hanshin Earthquake. The earthquake in China killed probably over 50,000 or even up to 100,000 people. Meanwhile, 10 millions people are survivors, who lost houses or being injured, needing aids.
If the same size earthquake occurred in big city in Japan, it should be the huge disaster too.
Thanks for the intelligent commentary, Zichi. I’m not a numerology person myself, but the fact that earthquakes traditional “signaled the end of a corrupt dynasty” is so historically fascinating.
In reply to the comment made by TofuUnion so that there is no misunderstanding. I wasn’t comparing the earthquake in China with any other. I was commenting on the strange things that happen prior to an earthquake. We seem unable to predict earthquakes no matter what technology is used so observing nature could serve a use.
Animals and other creatures appear to know when an earthquake is about to happen. I was comparing some of these stories that happened in Kobe Japan in 1995, with some of the stories which are on the Chinese blogs with the current horrific earthquake in China.
Just like the giant tsunami, the sea was sucked out about two hours before the tsunami happened, which is a very good indication that a massive tsunami will occur. Not much use if people don’t know about it.
From what I know, the earthquake in China was 7.8, the earthquake in Kobe Japan was 6.8-7.2. The earthquake in LA Northridge in 1994 was 6.7. The Kobe earthquake was destructive because it not only went up and down, but also from side to side. I believe the earthquake in China went only one direction. We need to ask why there is so much destruction in China in a known earthquake region and the answer is probably the buildings, especially the public buildings like schools and hospitals were not built to earthquake standards. In China, many of the newer buildings have collapsed while older ones are still standing. The reason why so few people died in the LA earthquake was due to the quality of the building standards.
In Kobe, many buildings did collapse, including major department stores and the expressway. Lessons were learnt and now all public buildings in Kobe must be built to withstand earthquakes.
I guess one day, when the big earthquake hits Tokyo it will be on the level of the present one in China even though many of the buildings are of a good standard.
I’m not taking anything away from the suffering of all the people in China, they all have my heart felt thoughts. An emergency team from Japan arrived at the earthquake zone today, and another is leaving tomorrow.
Kobe City is also very busy at this moment preparing to take its own actions because it was helped so much by other countries in 1995, whenever, wherever there is an earthquake, Kobe City now does what it can to help the victims and the suffering.
Floods were another sign of a declining dynasty in China (natural catastrophe plus the inability or will to maintain dike systems), which is one reason that the Communists have been so obsessed with preventing it by putting up damns everywhere.
Thanks again, zichi. I believed earthquake in Kobe Japan was magnitude 7.3 and the one in China was 7.9, so that the power size difference was supposed to be 10 times. However, as you say the earthquake in Kobe was 6.8 and the one in China was 7.8, then it should be 32 times. It’s incredible.
I read the news about the topic tonight that said there were many cracks found in 391 dams, and newly 18 lakes emerged in the area, so there are chances they collapse. If that happened it would cause floods into down villages and could kill more than one million people. They all need to be evacuated from endangered areas, are losing their houses.
As for building standards in Japan, many buildings aren’t actually met to new earthquake-proof standard. To fix that problem we need lots of financial support, which seems very difficult for the time being.
and then there’s the issue of China’s older nuclear reactor’s.
“China’s main complex for making nuclear warhead fuel, codenamed Plant 821, is beside a river in a hilly, forested part of the earthquake zone. It is some 15 miles northwest of Guangyuan in Sichuan Province. The vast site holds China’s largest production reactor and factories that mine its spent fuel for plutonium — the main ingredient for modern nuclear arms.”
NYT 16-05-08
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