Chris Cantell Discusses World News: China's post-quake challenge: 5 million homeless Radka Konkolova

Last week, truly huge earthquake hit China. The balance of this disaster is nasty. There are more than 40,000 people dead and at least 10,000 more deaths are expected, more than 32,000 people are still lost and approximately five million of survivors are without shelter, so they have become, we can say, homeless without any possession, just thankful that they are alive.
It has to be really very difficult for such people. Because in few minutes they lost all they had built all their lives as well as their relatives or friends. Now, people from most stricken areas have got no home. So the government set up the tent cities for such people. But the problem is, that although they have assured more than 280,000 tents, there is still about 400,000 of tents needed but missing. One of the encampment is on the base of Qianfo mountain and this one is dedicated to people living there. Almost all of them are farmers living there almost alone, just with their families so they don't need a good road in this region. And because there is terrible access, they had to climb to the tent town moreover 10 hours on their own feet and without anything except clothes they were wearing. Probably it was not easy to get there, but I think, they are glad being there, because there they are offered a help. Every survivor gets three bottles of fresh water per day, also something to eat, some bread and instant noodles. Also they can choose “new” clothes from the big pile and what is probably the most important, there is a big field hospital with eight physicians and six nurses who care of peoples' health and try to avoid spreading any infections in the encampment. They said, they treat about 1,000 people daily. Besides them there are also other people who do everything in order the infections won't arise and spread. And these people are sweepers and cleaners, who clean the whole camp every day. Fortunately, also thanks them, no infection has been noticed. But what is not good in these camps is that they are overcrowded. But on the other hand, people have got no other chance to choose another safe place. Because they are still afraid of the quakes. Last week there were several other quakes, not as strong as that on Monday, but they were in panic during those few seconds. They were running out of the tents and were confused and frightened. No wonder they are not calm, I think nobody would be if he was there.
Even government finally allows the aid from other parts of the world, so now there are Red Cross volunteers and mobile hospitals from Russia, and those medical aid from Japan, Italy, Taiwan and Germany are expected to arrive soon. And everybody hopes, they will help Chinese to care about injured and panic-stricken people and also help to find those who are still lost. People in government are trying to assure burying dead as soon as possible and they promise that every body will be identified later according to DNA specimens of dead persons.
Government prepares new regulations about building standard especially for schools and public buildings as offices and so on. So they want to avoid trap people mainly children in the rubble in the case of possible earthquake or other disaster.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake;_ylt=Aqux6stgEoNgT1AsNG.afNGs0NUE

by Radka Konkolova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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