Rescue work starts at the quake's epicenter with helicopters airlifting injured

The first batch of 47 injured were evacuated on Wednesday by helicopters from Wenchuan county, epicenter of the deadly Monday earthquake, to Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital.

    They were taken to Huaxi Hospital, the largest hospital in Chengdu.

    A second, larger batch, also arrived in Chengdu, according to a report on Sichuan TV, which didn't say how many people are in the batch.

    More than 800 soldiers have arrived at the county seat of Wenchuan, and some 600 people, including soldiers and medical workers, are to be sent to the Yingxiu town of Wenchuan.

    A temporary dock has been set up at the Zipingpu reservoir in Dujiangyan City, about 100 kilometers from the epicenter.

    "The voyage from the dock to Yingxiu takes 50 minutes, four hours faster than by land, and the land route is hampered by landslides," said a reporter surnamed Shen with the China Central Television.

    About a dozen ships are in operation, each capable of carrying 12 people.

    Rescuers have to cover the distance from Yingxiu town to the county seat of Wenchuan on foot after the voyage.

    In Yingxiu, where 70 to 80 percent of buildings have toppled, rescue work has started mainly at two sites -- the central primary school and an electric power company.

    In the school, some students were buried in the quake. Six have been recovered while rescuers have established contact with two others.

    In the kindergarten of the electric power company, two buried children were confirmed as alive. They could both speak and move.

    But rescue work is difficult because of a lack of digging equipment. There is only one crane and one grab. Most of the time rescuers have to dig with their own hands.

    Officers with the Chengdu Military Area Command said two helicopters airdropped food, drinking water and medicine to Yingxiu town at noon Wednesday.

    Premier Wen Jiabao went to Yingxiu by helicopter on Wednesday afternoon to inspect the situation, and then returned to Chengdu.

    "We will try our best to save more people. The roads are blocked, we use helicopters... currently we are going all out to clean up and repair the roads," he told people in the town.

    According to He Biao, deputy secretary-general of the Aba prefectural government, the population of Yingxiu exceeded 10,000.Only 2,300 people were confirmed to be alive, and 1,000 were seriously injured.

    "There is an urgent need for medical staff, medicine, food and drinking water," he said.

    The conditions of many injured people were deteriorating without needed medical supplies, said Chen Yi, an official with the Yingxiu township government.

    People in Yingxiu needed 35 tons of food every day, and more than 10,000 tents, according to a CCTV report.

    Entering the cut-off epicenter

    Twenty-eight helicopters are planned to make 80 flights on Thursday to deliver rescuers and relief sources.

    Mobile phones are to be airdropped to Yingxiu on Thursday and base stations are to be set up.

    On Wednesday afternoon, the first batch of 100 elite soldiers were parachuted to the cut-off Maoxian county, northeast of the epicenter Wenchuan.

    Death toll caused by Monday's major quake in Maoxian, with a population of roughly 105,000, rose to 95 as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, along with 836 injured and 92 missing, according to the paratroopers.

    Of the injured, 56 were critical, and food and tetanus medicines were urgently needed.

    Account of Xinhua reporters

    Three Xinhua reporters and a technician arrived at Yingxiu by military boat, and another by helicopter. They were the first journalists on the scene.

    "During the voyage, we could see lots of wreckage floating in the water -- wooden poles from collapsed houses, furniture and clothes. In some areas the water was dotted with oil," said Hou Dawei, a reporter on the boat.

    "About four or five kilometers away from the bank the air was rank with a sour odor," he said.

    On the bank where they landed were more than 30 injured people, who are waiting for evacuation. It is not known how many have been evacuated by boat.

    "We are moving in rescuers while carrying out the injured," said officer Zhi Liusuo. More than 200 soldiers had arrived at Yingxiu by powerboat as of midday.

    A photo sent back by satellite showed soldiers with huge backpacks trekking through the mountainous region, where long deep gaps rent the ground.

    Xu Zhuangzhi saw broken bridges and blocked roads from the helicopter.

    "What I saw after stepping out of the helicopter were ruins," he said after arriving at Yingxiu. "I could hardly see any intact buildings."

    Eight injured people were carried into the helicopter.

    "A 16-year-old boy, whose legs have been seriously injured, couldn't move at all. Beside him was 14-year-old Wang Tianyi, who was writhing in pain," Xu said.

    Li Xuanliang and Huang Shubo, two other Xinhua journalists, trekked for eight hours in Wenchuan and were 20-kilometers from Yingxiu.

    "On our way we saw many people fleeing from Yingxiu. They told me that water and power supplies had been severed for more than 30hours," Li said.

    A nation acts

    A strong quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County in northwest Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. on Monday. The death toll was 14,463 in Sichuan. Another 1,405 were missing, 25,788 buried in debris, and 64,746 injured.

    The government has dispatched 47,813 PLA personnel, armed police, and paramilitary forces to help with relief work and 1,700medical workers to Sichuan.

    Public donations in both cash and goods to the quake-hit areas had risen to 877 million yuan (125 million U.S. dollars) as of 4 p.m. on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

    The PLA had delivered 33.3 tons of disaster relief goods to and transferred 156 injured people by helicopter from Wenchuan County and other quake-stricken towns in Sichuan province as of 8 p.m..

    People in all over China donated blood, including celebrities like Li Yuchun, a pop singer who achieved fame on television's Super Girl contest.

    "I couldn't contact my parents in Sichuan until midnight of Monday. They slept in a garden that night," she said.

    Olympic torchbearers in the eastern Fujian Province called for donations to the earthquake-hit area.

    "As a torchbearer, I want to send my sympathy to the people in the earthquake-hit areas, and try to do something to help those affected," said Li Xinyan, the fifth torchbearer in the Longyan relay leg, and an entrepreneur of an engineering machinery enterprise.

    At the opening ceremony of the Ruijin leg in Jiangxi, torchbearers and audiences observed a minute's silence for victims of the earthquake.

    The 208 torchbearers in the leg donated more than one million yuan for disaster relief and issued an appeal to other torchbearers.

    "Let us join hands to dispel the haze of disaster, and warm the hearts of people in earthquake-hit areas with our torch," the letter read.

    Many Internet users shared information to ease each other's worries. The website of Sichuan Online (scol.com.cn) launched a search campaign to help people find relatives and friends.

    "If you haven't reached your acquaintances in Sichuan, or want to tell others your current situation, please leave a message on the BBS and we will help you," said "Qiaofeng" who initiated the campaign.

2008-05-14