Chris Cantell Discusses World News: Soldiers hike to quake-buried Chinese villages by Radka Konkolova

During the last weeks there happened too much catastrophes in the world. Besides various conflicts there are more and more natural disasters. People in Burma survived consumptive cyclone last week. This week is not an exception. On Monday China experienced the strongest earthquake for last 50 or 100 years, what meant certain death for more than 20 000 people. The worst situation has been near the epicenter and its surrounding. Almost every house and the whole villages are in the ruins and there are many people trapped underneath the rubble and nobody knows whether they are alive or not. It is very difficult for rescuers to get to some areas because there is no access as the roads are destroyed. The first rescuers being in the stricken areas were parachutists while there was no other way how to get there. But unfortunately they have got only bad news. More than a half of the dwellers of some villages has been killed by the fallen buildings or by the very earthquake. People are afraid about their lives and they were offered by the government to go away from the stricken places. So now they stay around the headquarters of China's nuclear weapons design industry, where they have their temporary home. Some of them have fear that the building is going to fall down, so they rather spend day outside it. Even one radio station puts one hour to read text messages from the survivals, who sent messages in order to let their relatives know, that they are alive. I think this has been a good sign from the radio station's side and for sure it has meant a mercy for some people. The situation is more difficult also thanks to the stable rain. The survivals need the fresh water, also food which is starting to dwindle and not least, the medicine. The government claimed, that they accept every aid they will be offered, but maybe it is not as easy. The rescuers are still trying to get to every area but there are many complications which they have to fight with. They haven't got good equipment and the access is also terrible. The best and only way how to get there is to use a plane or a helicopter. Now there are about 20 000 soldiers searching for the survivals, providing the help and there are another 30 000 available as the government said. Some people were also worried about the reservation where live pandas, but according to the news all of pandas are fine, because they weren't in the endangered zone. There are also some problems with the dams, while one of the biggest and relatively new was damaged and there is threat that city and villages which are about 10 kilometers far from it will be under the water and this could mean another killing, in this case thanks to another element, what is water. But on the other hand, another town is cut off the water because of the new dam, which is made by the fallen down soil. I think everybody hopes that the situation there will be better soon, but I know there were killed too much people and this can nobody give back, unfortunately.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080513/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake;_ylt=AkkMN7LZRGWuKvo6Wm4d5u6s0NUE

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

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.<br><br><font size=2>These news are original content from young talents around the world and are selected for you by Chris Cantell.</font><br>

edited by Zuzana Lakostikova