Visit Your Local PBS Station PBS Home PBS Home Programs A-Z TV Schedules Support PBS Shop PBS Search PBS

   
the Online NewsHour
E-mail This Page Print This Page
the Online NewsHourFUNDED IN PART BYPacific LifeChevronCorporation for Public Broadcasting2
BROWSE BY
REGION
TOPIC
RECENT PROGRAMSLOCAL TV LISTINGSSUBSCRIPTIONSNEWS FOR STUDENTSSEARCH


REGION: Asia-Pacific
TOPIC: Weather & Natural Disasters
Online NewsHour
TRANSCRIPT
Originally Aired: May 19, 2008
Report

China Mourns Quake Victims as Rescues Ebb

China begins three days of mourning Monday as millions of Chinese pause from their daily lives to remember victims of the May 12 earthquake as well as offer aid to those who must now rebuild their lives.
Quake survivors
 

LINDSEY HILSUM, ITV News Correspondent: The three-minute silence began as a relief helicopter flew overhead. As the sirens sounded, medical personnel and other volunteers also stopped.

Then, back to work, pulling out wood and other materials which can be used for rebuilding. Some 15,000 people lived in Hongbai. No one knows yet how many perished, but the town is utterly destroyed.

One week on, they've pretty much given up hope of finding anyone else alive in Hongbai, so they're picking through the rubble trying to salvage whatever property they can find.

This family ran a tailoring shop. They're pulling out what they can to take to the tent where they now live.

"We don't have a penny," she says, "just what you see here."

Rescue workers brought He Xianying down from the mountain. She didn't know if her son and daughter-in-law in Hongbai were alive or dead. And then joy of joys.

HE XIANYING (through translator): I was so scared. I was standing beside the vehicle, seeing the houses and the mountain collapse. I ran to the school to look for the children.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Her children survived, one with a head wound, but three other family members are dead.

Volunteers from a nearby town appear. Yang Zhoebao (ph) owns a food factory, so she's making lunches for earthquake victims. The Chinese government allows few nongovernmental organizations, so people are just loading up their cars and bringing in supplies themselves.

RESCUE VOLUNTEER (through translator): We cooked everything ourselves. We fried eggs and vegetables. I just want to contribute with my own effort to help as much as possible.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Up the mountain, a landslide has cut the road. The government says further landslides caused by aftershocks in the past few days have killed about 150 rescue workers.

At least 100 villagers on the other side of this broken bridge died in the quake. A thousand or so remain cut off and could only be reached on foot until the engineering corps finishes the repair.

On a quiet hillside, a mass grave. They've buried 108 bodies here, near an old lime kiln. Each one was photographed and DNA samples taken, in the hope that one day families will come to claim their dead and numbers can be replaced by names.

LATEST ASIA-PACIFIC HEADLINES
Thousands Stampede for Last of Olympics Tickets
China to Set up Olympic Protest Zones
Bombings Stoke Terrorism Fears before Olympics
  ASIA-PACIFIC: CHINA
China
  WORLD VIEW
WORLD VIEW



CURRENT NEWSHOUR HEADLINES
Foreclosures More than Double; Uptick Seen in Durable Goods

McCain-Obama Race Grabs Attention Across Europe

Thousands Stampede in Beijing for Last of Olympics Tickets







ABOUT US | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS / FEEDS: 
POD|RSS
Funded, in part, by:Pacific LifeChevronCorporation for Public Broadcasting
            Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station.
PBS Online Privacy Policy

Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.