Chinese authorities raced against time, distance and wind in a remote
corner of the Tibetan plateau as they tried to rescue victims from a
7.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 400 people and injured
more than 8,000 others.
The earthquake struck Wednesday morning in one of the most inaccessible reaches of
province’s Yushu county. The 100,000 people in the area are mostly
Tibetan, many of them making their living herding yaks and sheep.
Houses of mud and wooden beams gave way almost immediately when the tremor struck at
The school collapses evoked painful memories of the
“Buildings in our school were all toppled, and five
pupils have died,” a teacher surnamed Chang at the Yushu Primary
School, a boarding school with about 1,000 students, told the Xinhua
news service. “Morning sessions did not begin when the quake happened.
Some pupils ran out of dorms alive, and those who had not escaped in
time were buried.”
At a vocational school, troops sought to rescue 20 teachers and students still buried.
Logistical difficulties frustrated rescue crews.
Phones lines and electricity were out and strong winds swept the
plateau. Nearly 12,000 feet in elevation, Yushu is a full day’s drive
from the nearest major airport, in the provincial capital of
“What we need most is teams with special skills for
earthquake rescue, because we’re mostly digging ourselves right now,”
Pubu Cairen, head of the county’s emergency response, told CCTV in a
telephone interview.
Restraining the emotion in his voice, he told the
television reporter: “When I went back home to check, I found my house
too had collapsed and my mother was killed.”
“It is very difficult to save people with our bare hands,” Shi Huajie told the Chinese television station.
As night fell, many of the Tibetans had fled the
town and retreated to tents in the mountains, returning to a nomadic
lifestyle they had given up years before.
“People are sleeping in the mountains. They don’t
want to go back to their houses which are made of mud,” said a
24-year-old student from Yushu, reached by telephone in
The student, who did not wish her name to be used,
said most of the victims were Tibetans, many of them older people who
were still at home or sleeping when the earthquake hit.
“It was a very destructive earthquake,” the student said. “We have never had such a strong one in Yushu.”
People’s Liberation Army troops garrisoned in Yushu
secured banks, oil depots and caches of weapons and explosives shortly
after the quake, CCTV reported, but there were no reports of looting or
ethnic tension.
As with the
earthquake, the Chinese military looks likely to take a major role in
the rescue work. The Air Force had ordered 1,500 airborne troops and
100 parachutists to assist in the quake zone.
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