Update on disasters in China and Mayanmar

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   We all have read about natural disasters in China and Myanmar (Burma). The least we could do is discuss some of this and in a dedicated thread. 

May 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/world/asia/15morgue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&no_interstitial=&pagewanted=print

Tiny Bodies in a Morgue, and Grief in China 

By JIM YARDLEY

JUYUAN, China — The bodies are everywhere. Some are zipped inside white vinyl bags and strewn on the floor. Others have been covered in a favorite blanket or dressed in new clothes. There are so many bodies that undertakers want to cremate them in groups. They are all children.
“Our grief is incomparable,” said Li Ping, 39, eyes rimmed red, as he and his wife slowly, carefully pulled a pair of pink pajamas over the bruised, naked body of their 8-year-old daughter, Ke. “We got married late, and had a child late. She is our only child.”
The earthquake that struck Sichuan Province on Monday has so far claimed more than 19,000 lives across China, and thousands more people remain missing or trapped beneath rubble. But the awful scene at this local morgue is a sad reminder that too many of the dead are children in a country where most families are allowed to have only one.
These children symbolized the earthquake’s seemingly indiscriminate cruelty. But the cruelty, in the eyes of their parents, was also man-made.
Several schools in nearby Dujiangyan collapsed while classes were under way. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited two of them, including Xinjian Primary School, where parents say officials told him the death toll was 20 pupils.
“I am Grandpa Wen Jiabao,” the prime minister said as he watched two children being pulled from the rubble, according to Xinhua, the official state news agency. “Hold on, kids! You’ll definitely be rescued.”
But enraged parents interviewed at the morgue on Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday morning say local officials lied to the prime minister to hide the true toll at Xinjian, which they estimate at more than 400 dead children. Several parents blamed local officials for a slow initial rescue response and questioned the structural safety of the school building. They were also furious that officials forbade them to search for their children for two days and then allowed access to the bodies only after the parents formed an ad hoc committee to complain.
“Before Wen Jiabao came, the whole school was filled with children’s bodies,” said one mother who sat outdoors at the morgue with her husband in the early morning darkness beside the covered body of their 8-year-old daughter. “Her father and I had stood outside the school since the earthquake. We pleaded with the government: ‘If she is dead, I want to see the body. If she is alive, I want to see her.’ ”
Her husband, a thin man, leaned forward into the yellow light of two candles. “We’re telling you the truth,” he said. “Get the truth out.”
The morgue is an hour outside Dujiangyan on an isolated rural road, yet the parking lot was filled at 1:50 a.m. on Thursday. Parents and other family members clustered around the bodies of their children. Some burned fake money to bring their lost child good fortune in the afterlife. In one room, 25 small bodies were scattered on the floor. Some children had already been taken away; an empty white body bag lay near a sneaker and a filthy pair of boy’s trousers. Some families had placed flowers or incense inside empty water bottles as makeshift memorials. 
“There are more in there,” said a man, pointing to a rear door. He walked outside to a walkway and paused. Scores of bodies, covered with sheets, were lined in two long rows on the concrete floor. Others were placed in an adjacent room. Parents sobbed or sat silently beside bodies.
“They are all students,” said the man in the blue shirt. “Look,” he said pointing to a red and white jacket folded beside one body. “That is the school uniform.” He pointed to a Mickey Mouse backpack. “There is a book bag.”
The two rows of bodies came to an open door that led to the large steel furnaces used for cremation. In China, the dead are almost always cremated fairly soon after death. Usually, there is enough time for funeral ceremonies and rituals, but parents said that officials were worried about cremating so many bodies before they started to decompose. So some parents have been asked if their children can be cremated with dead friends to save time.
Parents say they were only allowed to begin identifying their children on Wednesday. The bodies had remained inside the gated grounds of Xinjian Primary School for two days until officials began transporting them to the morgue on Wednesday. 
The earthquake struck at 2:28 p.m. on Monday, and many parents rushed to the school. Xinjian had about 600 pupils, ages from roughly 7 to 12. When parents arrived most of the building had collapsed. They frantically pulled away bricks and chunks of concrete with their bare hands.
“We pleaded with the administrators to help us,” said one mother, Chen Li, 39, who came to the morgue on Wednesday to identify her son, a sixth grader. “We yelled, ‘Where are the soldiers? Send them to help us!’ ”
Parents say neighbors and students from a nearby college arrived by 4 p.m. to help with the digging. Local officials and school administrators also came but then left after inspecting the site. Two more hours passed before a large group of paramilitary police officers arrived and told the parents to leave because the area was too dangerous. Parents were relocated outside the school gate, unable to watch as the officers began digging.
Ms. Chen said her son, Zhang Yuanxin, was discovered the same day as the earthquake but then left uncovered in the rain with other bodies on the playground. She said two trucks arrived Wednesday and carried away bodies shortly before Mr. Wen arrived for his inspection.
“I think there were 50 bodies in two trucks that were carried away,” Ms. Chen said. “I asked those people, ‘Are you taking the bodies away?’ ”
But she said local officials lied to her and said they were only taking away tents.
Parents say they became so angry over the situation at the school by Tuesday that they formed the committee and complained to local officials. Officials in Dujiangyan could not be reached for comment, but parents say the officials relented on Wednesday by moving the children’s bodies to the morgue and providing shuttle buses for people waiting outside the school.
At the morgue on Wednesday, parents walked through rooms lined with bodies on the floor, lifting sheets in the unwanted search to identify a lost child. Cai Changrong, 37, held an urn containing the ashes of his cremated 9-year-old daughter. His wife, Hu Xiu, could not stop wailing.
“We didn’t find any bruises or injuries on her body,” said Ms. Hu, the mother. “But she lost all her nails. She was trying to scratch her way out. I think my daughter suffocated to death.”
Several parents wanted an investigation into the construction quality of school buildings in Dujiangyan. They say six schoolhouses collapsed in the city, even as other government buildings remain standing. One man said officials built two additional stories on the Xinjian school even though it had failed a safety inspection two years ago — allegations that could not be verified.
Mr. Li, the father dressing his dead daughter, also said he believed that the school was poorly built. He arrived at the school minutes after the quake and spent the next four hours searching for his daughter. His forearms were bruised and his fingernails were split and bloodied from digging. 
He proudly handed over his cellphone and showed a picture of his daughter, Ke, taken last week. But Thursday morning, he and his wife were preparing for her cremation. They struggled to slip her into the pink pajamas and then dressed her in a gray sweatshirt and pants. Her mother placed a white silk mourning cloth under her clotted black hair.
Mr. Li said he lost his job in 1997 and had been living on a meager welfare payment. He said the school was filled with children from poor families. “My daughter was a very good student,” he said. “She was a quiet girl, and she liked to paint. We’re putting her in these clothes because she loved them.”
He said he was angry and sad. He said his daughter’s body was still warm when he found her at the morgue on Wednesday. He wondered how long she lived beneath the rubble. And then he turned away, leaning down slightly, and whispered in her ear.
“My little daughter,” he said quietly. “You used to dress yourself. Now I have to do it for you.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-05-15-burma-aid_N.htm?csp=34
Burma cyclone death toll rises above 43,000
RANGOON, Burma (AP) — Burma's junta warned Thursday that legal action would be taken against people who trade or hoard international aid as the cyclone's death toll soared above 43,000.
It was the first acknowledgment by the military government, albeit indirectly, of problems with relief operations in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
The warning came amid reports that foreign aid was being sold openly in markets, and that the military was pilfering and diverting aid for its own use.
The ruling junta has been blasted by aid agencies for refusing to allow most foreign experts into the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta and not responding adequately to what they say is a spiraling crisis.
Relief workers reported that some storm survivors were being given spoiled or poor-quality food rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to fears that the ruling military junta in the Southeast Asian country could be misappropriating assistance.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement Wednesday that it had confirmed an Associated Press report that the military had seized high-energy biscuits that came from abroad, and distributed low-quality, locally produced biscuits to survivors.
Thursday's state radio announcement obliquely denied the military was misappropriating aid.
"The government has systematically accepted donations and has distributed the relief goods immediately and directly to the victims," it said. "Effective legal action will be taken against those who hoard, sell or buy, use or misuse the international or local donations or relief goods or cash to the cyclone victims."
Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said aid workers who visited all the major markets in Rangoon found no evidence of hoarding or sale of relief goods.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies spokesman Matthew Cochrane said the organization also had not received any such reports.
The government said Thursday that the official death toll from the May 2-3 cyclone had climbed by almost 5,000 to 43,318. The number of missing has remained at 27,838 for at least two days.
But the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimated the death toll was between 68,833 and 127,990. The U.N. says more than 100,000 may have died.
The U.N. and the Red Cross say between 1.6 and 2.5 million people are in urgent need of food, water and shelter. Only 270,000 have been reached so far by the aid groups.
Tons of foreign aid including water, blankets, mosquito nets, tarpaulins, medicines and tents have been sent to Burma, but its delivery has been slowed down because of bottlenecks, poor infrastructure and bureaucratic tangles.
The junta insists on taking control of the distribution. It has allowed the U.N. and some other agencies to hand out the aid directly but prohibited their few foreign staff allowed into Burma from leaving Yangon, the country's main city.
Police have turned back foreigners from checkpoints at the city's exits.
"There is a visible fence around Yangon that we don't dare cross. A circle has been drawn around Yangon and expats are confined there," said Tim Costello of aid group World Vision.
He said the group has delivered aid to 100,000 people in spite of the "narrow parameters." But there are tens of thousands more who haven't received help because of heavy rain and lack of helicopters and expert staff.
"While you are getting aid through, it's like getting it through on a 3-inch pipe not 30-inch pipe," Costello said.
The regime insists it can handle the disaster on its own — a stance that appears to stem not from its abilities but its deep suspicion of most foreigners, who have frequently criticized its human rights abuses and crackdown on democracy activists.
In a clear sign that politics is playing a role, the junta granted approval to 160 relief workers from India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand, which have rarely criticized Burma's democracy record.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Thursday that so far the U.S. has done 13 airlifts. Reports from the ground indicate "that international relief supplies transported by the Burmese military have been arriving in disaster areas," he said.
"It's impossible for us to completely verify that all the relief supplies are getting to the affected areas but we are monitoring that through our contacts that are inside the country" — UN and aid private aid groups, he said. "And to the best of our ability, to date, we have not seen any U.S. assistance that has been diverted."
He said the Navy ships from the USS Essex expeditionary strike group were moved slightly after Wednesday's warning of another approaching storm, but they now remain some 30 nautical off Burma's coast, also waiting to help if asked.
Even Burma citizens are being restricted by the security forces, said Zaw Htin, a 21-year-old medical student who visited hard-hit Bogalay town on Wednesday.
"They (military) don't want us to stay and talk to people. They want us to leave the supplies with them for distribution. But how can I treat them if I can't talk to them? How do we administer medical care if we can't touch them, feel their pulse or give them advice?" she said.
"It was overwhelming even for us who have seen a lot of suffering and death," Zaw Htin said.
Britain's prime minister said Thursday that an emergency U.N. summit to coordinate efforts to rush aid to cyclone victims in Burma will be held in Asia.
Gordon Brown told a news conference the summit was being organized by the U.N. and Asian countries and would be held in the region. He said the meeting represented "great progress" but gave no details of when it would take place.
Also Thursday, the junta announced that voters had overwhelmingly backed a pro-military constitution in a referendum that was held one week after the cyclone.
Human rights organizations and dissident groups bitterly accused the junta of neglecting disaster victims in going ahead with the vote, and have criticized the proposed constitution as designed to perpetuate military rule.
State radio said the draft constitution was approved by 92.4% of the 22 million eligible voters. It put voter turnout Saturday at more than 99% of eligible voters in areas that went to the polls.
Voting was postponed until May 24 in the Irrawaddy delta and Yangon areas, which were worst hit by Cyclone Nargis. But state radio said the results of the late balloting could not mathematically reverse the constitution's approval.
"People are dying and they are talking about the referendum?" said Kyaw Muang, a small food store owner in Yangon. "They (the generals) don't even care about dying people, you think they care about democracy for living people?" he said.
"I don't care about the referendum. It doesn't mean anything," he said.
Human Rights Watch also slammed the timing of the constitution announcement and questioned the accuracy of the results.
David Mathieson, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand, said the junta hopes that by announcing the results now it would divert attention away from its handling of the disaster and its refusal to cooperate with the international community.
"It seems strategically timed because you would have thought with how busy they were in cleaning up the cyclone that they never would have had time to count this properly," he said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.