The Ministry of Civil Affairs said yesterday evening that 6,300
tents had arrived at Ruichang and Jiujiang, near the epicenter of
Saturday's earthquake in Jiangxi Province, as hundreds of thousands
of wary residents continued to stay in the open.
Liu Yongfa, a ministry official in charge of the response to the
disaster, said 1,500 more were on their way from the neighboring
province of Hubei.
According to today's China Daily, in hardest-hit
Ruichang more than 420,000 people had left their homes because of
sporadic aftershocks; and most were accommodated in tents pitched
in open spaces or on wide streets.
Zhang Xiao, a resident whose two-storey house was damaged, had
to share a tent with his neighbors.
"Children and the elderly get priority," Zhang told China
Daily, as local government officials said more tents were
needed.
Hundreds of patients were being treated in tents because
hospital buildings had suffered structural damage, said the paper,
and residents had also received instant noodles, cakes, milk and
bottled mineral water.
"A lot of patients have been moved from dangerous buildings to
makeshift structures in the open square," said Wang Jian, a doctor
at Ruichang Hospital of Chinese Medicine, which is treating about
100 injured and where eight babies have been delivered safely in
the last two days.
The earthquake, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, rocked
Ruichang and Jiujiang on Saturday morning, killing at least 15 and
injuring around 400. Thousands of houses collapsed or were badly
damaged.
Tremors were also felt in Hubei, where one was killed and nearly
100 injured, and in Anhui Province, where dozens of homes were
damaged.
Jiangxi Civil Affairs Bureau said yesterday that around 18,000
buildings in Ruichang and Jiujiang had collapsed and 150,000 had
been damaged, with direct economic losses estimated at 1 billion
yuan (US$123 million).
(China.org.cn, China Daily November 29, 2005)
