'The Whole World Stands Behind You'
U.N. Chief Delivers Message of Support to China; Quake Donations Hit $3.7 Billion

By Maureen Fan and Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 25, 2008

YINGXIU, China, May 24 -- U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday surveyed recovery efforts at one of the towns hit hardest by China's May 12 earthquake, telling Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that "the whole world stands behind you and supports you."

Domestic and foreign donations for relief efforts have reached $3.7 billion, with 15 countries contributing 1,000 tons of aid materials and $72 million as of Wednesday, the state-run New China News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials in charge of workplace and environmental safety say teams have identified and dealt with thousands of "hidden dangers," averting secondary disasters such as chemical and radiation leaks in Sichuan province and surrounding areas rocked by the 7.9-magnitude quake.

"So far, no secondary accidents have occurred in the disaster-stricken areas," Wang Dexue, vice minister of the State Administration of Work Safety, said at a news conference in Beijing.

Wang said production has stopped at 279 mines and chemical enterprises, which will need to pass government safety checks before resuming operations. Most of the mines are small, and the total capacity lost by their shutdown is not expected to affect China's overall output of coal.

Rescue teams are working to dig out 24 trapped miners in three mines in the area, Wang said, adding that he does not know whether they are still alive. "We have had the miracle in the past that a miner was found alive after being trapped underground for 21 days," he said. "We absolutely will not give up."

Wang said 176 miners were killed as a result of the earthquake, and 204 are listed as missing.

Overall, the official death toll jumped to 60,560, with 26,221 people listed as missing. "It may further climb to a level of 70,000, 80,000 or more," Wen, the premier, told reporters.

Nearly half the residents of one town, Yingxiu, were killed or are listed as missing. The steeply winding road to Yingxiu had reopened, and on Saturday the town was crawling with members of the People's Armed Police and the People's Liberation Army, provincial health disinfection teams, forensic scientists and civilian volunteers trying to impose order.

On the main street, soldiers lined up with shovels and black body bags at the ready, while bulldozers shoved debris. Teams in white bodysuits combed the town, and visitors -- and their cars -- were sprayed with disinfectant on departure. Soldiers shot some abandoned, hungry dogs to put them out of their misery.

In the late afternoon, two soldiers shouted: "Hurry, hurry! There's going to be an explosion!" They pushed people back before a huge deliberate blast demolished a large building and sent clouds of smoke billowing.

Confusion stalled some recovery efforts. Li Fujin, 42, a credit union employee, rushed up to a soldier and told him: "There are four people buried over there, and there are three safes. Just now, People's Armed Police soldiers were helping us, but they realized they were working in the wrong place, and they left."

Some areas of the region are so devastated, or have been deemed so unstable, that officials have given up hope of rebuilding. Officials plan to relocate the city of Beichuan, where more than 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed, and designate the current site as a memorial.

About 10,000 survivors from nearby Qingchuan county will be resettled in other provinces because the "tough natural environment" makes it impossible to find a safe place to rebuild those homes, the New China News Agency reported.

In the past week, Sichuan's vice governor, Li Chengyun, said it will take three years to rebuild cities and roads in the province.

Wu Xiaoqing, vice minister of environmental protection, said at a news conference Friday in Beijing that there had been four chemical leaks but that quick action to contain them prevented damage to the surrounding environment. He said teams had recovered 35 of 50 known radioactive sources in the quake region. Experts said the devices are probably small, the type used in hospitals, for example.

Wu said there had been no radiation leaks as a result of the 15 missing devices .

Drew reported from Beijing. Researchers Zhang Jie and Liu Songjie and washingtonpost.com staff writer Travis Fox contributed to this report.