Hu on site: We'll spare no effort to aid victims
By Anita Chang |
April 19, 2010, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Hu Jintao cradled an injured Tibetan girl as she wept yesterday and promised speedy aid for the people left homeless when a massive earthquake struck the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in northwest China.
Hu cut short an official trip to South America to deal with the disaster, which killed more than 1,700 people in northwest China's Qinghai Province.
His trip included visits with displaced families living in tents and rescue teams as they dug through debris.
He sat with the injured in a field hospital and promised the Party and the government were doing everything they could to help victims, most of them Tibetan.
"I guarantee the Party and the government will help you build a new home and make sure your children can return to school as soon as possible," Hu told a family in a tent.
Footage on China Central Television showed Hu grasping the hand of a monk as he pledged that every effort would be made to save anyone still trapped under rubble.
"As long as there is a ray of hope we will try 100 times harder to save lives," he said.
At a field hospital set up on the grounds of a sports stadium, Hu sat on the bed of a Tibetan middle school student identified by CCTV as Zhuoma, and held her as she wept. Her right arm was bandaged and in a sling.
"Rest assured, you will have a full recovery," he told her. "Don't worry.
"I know you are a good girl. Be strong. You will have a bright future. Grandpa will be thinking of you."
The death toll rose yesterday by a few hundred to 1,706 with 256 still missing, Xinhua news agency said, citing rescue headquarters in Gyegu. It said 12,128 were injured, 1,424 seriously.
Most survivors who were not evacuated to hospitals elsewhere were now living in tents and had basic food and clean water, Zou Ming, head of disaster relief at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told a news conference in Beijing.
By yesterday morning, the rescuers - more than 15,000 of them - had saved about 17,000 lives.
About 25,000 tents, 52,000 quilts, 16,000 cotton-padded coats and 850 tons of instant food and drinking water have arrived in the quake zone. Another 18,950 cotton-padded tents are on the way.
In a hillside ceremony on Saturday, Buddhist monks in face masks set ablaze piles of blanket-wrapped bodies in a mass cremation.
The quake destroyed more than a third of the schools in Gyegu and rendered the rest dangerous, the Qinghai provincial government said. It added that 103 students were killed and 684 pupils and teachers injured, and at least 38 others were still missing.
The first makeshift school started classes on Saturday, with 60 elementary and middle school students singing the national anthem.
Taiwan's Red Cross, meanwhile, sent a medical team with relief supplies and medicine, joining others areas of China in the relief effort.
Hu cut short an official trip to South America to deal with the disaster, which killed more than 1,700 people in northwest China's Qinghai Province.
His trip included visits with displaced families living in tents and rescue teams as they dug through debris.
He sat with the injured in a field hospital and promised the Party and the government were doing everything they could to help victims, most of them Tibetan.
"I guarantee the Party and the government will help you build a new home and make sure your children can return to school as soon as possible," Hu told a family in a tent.
Footage on China Central Television showed Hu grasping the hand of a monk as he pledged that every effort would be made to save anyone still trapped under rubble.
"As long as there is a ray of hope we will try 100 times harder to save lives," he said.
At a field hospital set up on the grounds of a sports stadium, Hu sat on the bed of a Tibetan middle school student identified by CCTV as Zhuoma, and held her as she wept. Her right arm was bandaged and in a sling.
"Rest assured, you will have a full recovery," he told her. "Don't worry.
"I know you are a good girl. Be strong. You will have a bright future. Grandpa will be thinking of you."
The death toll rose yesterday by a few hundred to 1,706 with 256 still missing, Xinhua news agency said, citing rescue headquarters in Gyegu. It said 12,128 were injured, 1,424 seriously.
Most survivors who were not evacuated to hospitals elsewhere were now living in tents and had basic food and clean water, Zou Ming, head of disaster relief at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told a news conference in Beijing.
By yesterday morning, the rescuers - more than 15,000 of them - had saved about 17,000 lives.
About 25,000 tents, 52,000 quilts, 16,000 cotton-padded coats and 850 tons of instant food and drinking water have arrived in the quake zone. Another 18,950 cotton-padded tents are on the way.
In a hillside ceremony on Saturday, Buddhist monks in face masks set ablaze piles of blanket-wrapped bodies in a mass cremation.
The quake destroyed more than a third of the schools in Gyegu and rendered the rest dangerous, the Qinghai provincial government said. It added that 103 students were killed and 684 pupils and teachers injured, and at least 38 others were still missing.
The first makeshift school started classes on Saturday, with 60 elementary and middle school students singing the national anthem.
Taiwan's Red Cross, meanwhile, sent a medical team with relief supplies and medicine, joining others areas of China in the relief effort.
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