Death Toll Rising in China
Quake Fatalities Are Expected to Climb Further As Teams Search for Thousands Still Trapped

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

MIANYANG, China, May 14 -- Soldiers, paramilitary police and civilian rescue workers struggled against rainstorms and fog early Tuesday to reach thousands of people trapped under the rubble of schools, hospitals and homes collapsed by Monday's deadly earthquake in central China.

Two thousand more people were found dead and as many as 18,000 were believed buried under debris in the area surrounding the city of Mianyang, near Chengdu in Sichuan province, the official New China News Agency reported. The discovery brought to 12,000 the number of people confirmed killed by the tremor, a toll that looks likely to climb as more of the victims in Mianyang and other hard-hit towns are uncovered.

On Wednesday morning, the streets and vacant lots of Mianyang were dotted with makeshift tents sheltering thousands of people who had spent a second night outside their homes in a steady, cold rain. Zheng Minyan, 44, who was under a blue tarp with a dozen of his family members and a small dog, said that he believed his house was still standing and that he would return Wednesday to assess whether his family might be able to move back in.

"We're not doing too bad here," Zheng said, smiling and taking a drag on his cigarette.

Others were not as fortunate. In the town of Dujiangyan, about 30 miles from Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, hundreds of parents gathered outside a school that had collapsed, watching as soldiers tried to unearth children buried below slabs of concrete and brick. Many parents began venting their anger at authorities.

"People are dying!" shouted one father. "Let us dig; we don't need you!"

More than 30,000 army troops along with People's Armed Police and army reservists joined civilian rescue teams. It remained difficult for many of them to reach affected areas. Aftershocks from the 7.9-magnitude quake continued to jolt the region.

In Wenchuan county, one of the most severely affected regions, the Communist Party secretary, Wang Bin, made a widely reported appeal over a satellite telephone for immediate airdrops of food, medicine and tents on Tuesday. He said the aid was needed to care for what he estimated were 30,000 people left homeless by the destruction in Wenchuan town, the county seat. "We are in urgent need of supplies, especially doctors," he said.

The official Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday that 7,700 people were killed in Wenchuan, but it was not clear if that figure was included in the larger toll of 12,000.

Helicopters dispatched to bring help to destroyed villages in the mountainous terrain near the Wolong panda reserve were forced to turn back because of heavy clouds and driving rain, the New China News Agency reported. Similarly, paratroopers who had planned to parachute in called off their mission because of the weather.

The fate of the giant pandas had been unknown until late Tuesday, when officials at Wolong managed to use a satellite phone to contact authorities and report that all of the bears were safe, according to the official news agency. A group of 12 Americans in the area, on a tour sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, still had not been heard from.

Premier Wen Jiabao, who was in the region directing rescue efforts, was seen bowing three times in a ritual of respect for the dead before the ruins of the collapsed school in Dujiangyan, the official agency said. Wen declared that the soldiers, police and other rescuers should make clearing roads to reach those pinned under the rubble their top priority.

"We will save people," Wen said in a talk to survivors and rescue workers broadcast by the party's China Central Television.

Wen, who flew in from Beijing soon after the scale of the disaster became known, has been photographed and televised repeatedly directing rescue workers and shouting encouragement to victims. His display of concern, and its wide reporting by the official media, was in marked contrast to the secretive way the Communist Party has handled emergencies in the past.

The toll of China's deadliest earthquake, a temblor at Tangshan in 1976 that killed about 240,000, was considered a state secret for years. But since the Sichuan quake struck at 2:28 Monday afternoon, government officials have provided regular updates for distribution by the New China News Agency. Apparently seeking to control the message, however, the Central Propaganda Bureau told Chinese editors Tuesday not to dispatch their own reporters to the scene, according to journalists in Beijing.

The party leadership announced in Beijing that its elite Politburo Standing Committee had met with President Hu Jintao in command to make sure the government went all-out to save as many people as possible. "Time is life," said a Standing Committee statement.

As offers of aid flowed in from foreign governments, China's Civil Affairs Ministry welcomed the help but said foreign volunteers would not be admitted. At this stage, Chinese authorities would not be able to deal with foreign rescue teams, the ministry's Zhen Yaowang told reporters in Beijing.

An estimated 900 eighth- and ninth-grade students and their teachers were trapped in the Dujiangyan school where Wen paid his respects, officials told reporters. Another school with up to 1,000 students and teachers inside collapsed at Mianyang in Beichuan county, about 20 miles to the northeast, the New China News Agency said, and several schools were destroyed in and around Deyang, about 40 miles northeast of Chengdu.

About 60 bodies were pulled from the rubble in Dujiangyan, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene. With communications down in much of the area, precise official information was not available.

Li Jian, 32, a restaurant owner who lives several miles away, said Dujiangyan townspeople were under strain because most spent the night outdoors under a cold mountain rain. "It was raining hard," he said by telephone. "We couldn't sleep. People were scared. And today, still, there were small earthquakes all through the day."

The Health Ministry in Beijing, meanwhile, issued an appeal for blood donations for victims. The Finance Ministry said it has allocated an initial $123 million for rescue efforts.

Despite the disaster here in Sichuan, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games sought to reassure potential foreign visitors that they will be safe during the Beijing Games in August. Zhang Jian, director of the committee's project management department, stressed to reporters in the capital that the quake area is a long way from Beijing and would have no effect on the Games.

Still, officials said that China is scaling back celebrations along the route of the Olympic torch out of respect for earthquake victims, and that it will observe a minute of silence each morning before the torch relay proceeds.

Donation boxes will also be set up along the relay route to help provide relief for victims of the quake, a statement said.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, sent a message of condolence to China's president, the committee announced. "The Olympic movement is at your side, especially during these difficult moments," he wrote. "Our thoughts are with you."

Correspondents Maureen Fan in Beijing and Jill Drew in Dujiangyan contributed to this report.