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Today 243 people injured in last week's Wenchuan earthquake arrived in Kunming for medical treatment. As Sichuan's medical infrastructure feels the strain of tens of thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of injured, the Chinese government is shifting 8,000 injured out of Sichuan to Chongqing, Shaanxi, Guizhou, Guangdong and Yunnan. It is the largest shifting of injured since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 that killed a quarter of a million people. Hospitals including Stone Forest Tianqi Hospital are preparing entire floors of beds for quake victims. The hospital said it had been preparing more than 200 beds taking up three floors since Monday. Located on Sichuan's southern border and home to a large Sichuanese population, Yunnan has made significant contributions to the relief effort. According to Kunming media, as of 2:00 pm on Wednesday the entire province had donated nearly 370 million yuan (US$53 million) in goods and more than 338 million yuan in cash to the cause. Yunnan schools are also accepting children from Sichuan whose schools were destroyed or damaged in the 8.0 magnitude quake. Image: clzg.cn Related article: Earthquake benefit raises more than 10,000 yuan Tags: Chongqing, Guangdong, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Wenchuan earthquake Earthquake highlights risks of damming Southwest ChinaWednesday, 14th May 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (1)
China is home to an estimated 85,000 dams nationwide, more than 40 percent of the world's total. A large portion of those are in southwest China, especially Sichuan and Yunnan, whose rivers have their headwaters in neighboring Tibet. Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake in northern Sichuan province highlights one of the vulnerabilities and inherent risks of China's prolific dambuilding in its southwest. Major rivers include the Jinsha, Nu and Lancang rivers, the headwaters of the Yangtze, Salween and Mekong rivers, respectively. Sichuan's Tulong and Zipingpu reservoirs suffered damage from the quake, endangering the downstream city of Dujiangyan and its 500,000 residents, according to a Reuters report citing a local official. According to the report, Sichuan's Yuzui levee, the linchpin of the Dujiangyan system, has also sustained damage from the quake, with cracks appearing. China's Ministry of Water Resources said the cracks were not serious. In addition to Sichuan, the ministry has sent teams to the regions of Yunnan, Chongqing, Gansu and Shaanxi to assess earthquake-related damage to local dams. The majority of Yunnan's dams are far from Kunming and other major metropolitan areas within the province. Xinhua quoted Water Resources Minister Chen Lei as saying that "local governments should monitor (dam) projects, to discover and repair damage as soon as possible. In case of danger, make sure to transport people to safer places." Newer dam projects are tending to be larger than before, such as the Xiluodu Power Station, a dam that is being built on the Jinsha River between Sichuan and Yunnan. The hydropower project is scheduled for completion in 2015 and will be China's second-largest dam after the Three Gorges project. Image: biaoshu.com Related article: China's second-largest hydropower project enters construction phase Tags: Chongqing, dams, Dujiangyan, earthquake, environment, Gansu, hydropower, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Three Gorges, Tibet |
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