Earthquake survivors, sheltered in tents, cooked a meal on Sunday among the ruins of houses in Sichuan Province. Tents are in short supply in the quake zone.
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: May 26, 2008
Two weeks after a powerful earthquake devastated parts of southwest China, the government is struggling to deal with a crisis that has left up to five million people homeless.
Beijing is urgently appealing for international aid, including tents and other supplies to house, feed and clothe residents in an area that is roughly the size of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and New Jersey combined.
Relief agencies say China’s needs are staggering, and officials worry that the international community may not have nearly enough tents to offer.
Over the weekend, China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, appealed for more assistance as he toured the area hit by the earthquake with Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general.
Last week, President Hu Jintao visited Chinese factories that make tents and temporary buildings, pressing them to step up production for the sake of the earthquake survivors, many of whom lost everything.
The appeals came as the death toll in the May 12 earthquake, the country’s worst natural disaster in more than three decades, was raised to 62,000 people, with more than 350,000 injured and about 23,000 still missing.
Concerns remain about severely damaged dams, chemical plants and other infrastructure, and there have been warnings that artificial lakes created by the earthquake could breach their banks and that crowding in refugee camps could spread disease.
“The needs here are tremendous,” said Nicolas Tocqué, an emergency logistics coordinator working in Sichuan for Doctors Without Borders, the international aid agency. “There are people with no place to go.”
As if those challenges were not enough, large aftershocks and landslides over the past week have hampered relief efforts, toppling thousands of unstable buildings, killing aid workers and prompting even more residents to abandon their homes for makeshift tents they have propped up along city streets and highways.
The government is planning an extensive reconstruction project that includes building more than 1.5 million temporary homes, which are expected to last two or three years.
Beijing has pledged more than $9 billion for the reconstruction effort and says it has received an additional $4 billion in donations of money, food and other supplies from around the world.
But the sheer number of refugees has created daunting challenges for the government and relief agencies. Few countries have ever faced the prospect of five million people suddenly made homeless by a natural disaster.
In 2005, a huge earthquake in Pakistan killed 73,000 people and displaced 3.5 million, but in a region far smaller than the area affected in China, according to the United Nations.
And when a tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004, the damage displaced about one million people.
The United Nations has not done an independent assessment of the earthquake area in China, but says the government figures for displaced people are enormous.
“This is a huge disaster,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva. “We had a meeting on Friday and discussed the need for 3.3 million tents. I’m not even sure the international community has that many tents.”
United Nations officials also say an environmental team is on emergency standby ready to go to China if the government approves, to assess possible dangers there.
China has reacted swiftly to the earthquake, which struck a heavily populated, mountainous region of Sichuan Province. The government says it has mobilized more than 150,000 soldiers and relief workers in the province.
Large sports arenas in the region have been converted into temporary shelters, and huge tent communities have sprouted up throughout the earthquake zone.
In Mianyang, a city northeast of the epicenter, Jiuzhou Stadium is being used to house more than 20,000 people. Most of them sleep on donated blankets and other bedding placed in stadium corridors, the parking lot, under ramps and stairwells, and even in a boxing ring.
The survivors gather there with stories of grief and sorrow.
Wang Zian, a 53-year-old teacher, sits on a blanket in the stadium corridors with his wife and 16-year-old daughter, who survived the collapse of her school.
He talks about how the earthquake devastated their village in Beichuan County, sending several relatives to the hospital and burying his daughter in the ruins of her school with her best friend, who died lying next to her.
“We have only ourselves, nothing else,” he said quietly, his family looking on. “We want to go home, but how can we live in Beichuan?”
Chen Mingli, another refugee, says that he escaped the earthquake that destroyed his village, but that his sister is still missing.
“I carried my mother on my back, and my wife and I walked for 11 hours in the mountains,” he said. “There were stones falling all along the way. We just walked until finding a truck, and the driver brought us to Mianyang.”
He added, “I just want a home and a family.”
Some of the survivors look filthy; others depressed. But mostly, they look weary.
Teams of health officials conduct regular medical checks and spray disinfectants everywhere, in some cases right at refugees.
Food lines can be long. Officials recognize the challenges of holding such a large group in a camp.
“Now, to prevent disease, we are beginning to transfer people,” says Xu Bin, coordinator of the stadium’s volunteer groups. “The stadium is overcrowded and disease could break out.”
Compounding the problems, many survivors have no identification cards, no money and little or nothing to do but wait for the government to decide how to compensate them for their losses.
Many have no desire to return home.
“We don’t know what will happen, but we don’t want to live there anymore,” said Li Tingjian, 54, noting that five generations of her family lived in Beichuan County. “I heard there will be aftershocks, landslides and flooding.”
译文:
中国政府努力安置百万受灾群众
图为周日时四川省地震幸存者在帐篷中煮饭，周围是房屋的废墟。帐篷在受灾地区十分紧缺。
记者大卫·巴博萨
发布于：2008年5月26日
在一场大地震袭击了中国西南部两周后，中国政府正努力处理目前最大的危机，即如何安置五百万无家可归的受灾群众。
中国政府正紧急呼吁国际社会给予四川地区的人民援助，包括帐篷和其他房屋，食品和衣服。四川省地区大小相当于马萨诸塞州，佛蒙特州，新罕布什尔州和新泽西州的总和。
援助机构称中国对这些物品的需求量十分惊人，政府担心国际社会也无法提供足够的帐篷。
周末，中国总理温家宝与联合国秘书长潘基文访问了地震受灾地区，呼吁各方提供更多援助。
上周，中国主席胡锦涛前往中国生产帐篷和临时房屋的工厂，要求他们为地震受灾群众抓紧生产物资，许多群众已经一无所有了。
5.12地震是中国近三十年来最严重的自然灾害，死亡人数已经上升至62000人，超过350000人受伤，仍有23000人失踪。
另外还让人担忧的是受损严重的大坝，化学工厂和其他基础设施，同时由于地震造成的堰塞湖可能会决堤，而难民营中的大量人口可能会滋生传染病。
尼古拉斯·托克是一名无国界医生组织的后勤协调员，该组织是现在正四川展开救治的一个国际援救机构，。他说：“这里的物资需求量很大，这里的人们没有别的地方可以去。”
就好像这些困难还不够似的，在过去的一周里严重的余震和山体滑坡阻碍了救援工作，导致了数千座危房坍塌，救援人员伤亡，更多群众放弃自己的家园，他们只得在城市的街道和高速公路上搭建临时简易帐篷。
中国政府正在制定一个紧密的重建计划，包括修建150万套临时住房，受灾群众要在这些临时房屋中住上两到三年。
中央政府已经下拨超过9亿美元的资金用于灾后重建工作，另外中国政府还收到价值4亿美元的来自全世界的捐款，食品和其他物资。但是受灾群众的数量为政府和援助机构带来了巨大的难题。几乎没有国家遇到过由于一场突如其来的灾难导致的五百万受灾人口。
2005年，巴基斯坦发生大地震，造成73000人死亡，350万群众无家可归。但是根据联合国报告，巴基斯坦的受影响区域远远小于中国的受灾地区。
2004年印度尼西亚遭受海啸袭击，导致一百万人无家可归。
联合国还没有对中国的地震受灾区域做出独立的受损估价，但指出政府要考虑到的受灾群众数量十分巨大。
日内瓦联合国人权事务协调处的发言人伊丽莎白·比尔斯说：“这是一场巨大的灾难，我们周五召开了一次会议，讨论出可能需要330万顶帐篷。我甚至不能肯定国际社会能援助得了这么多帐篷。”
他们还说一致环境研究队已经紧急待命，一旦得到中国政府的允许将立即前往中国，对可能存在的危险进行评估。
地震发生点四川省是一个人口众多的山区，中国政府对地震的反应迅速。中国政府说总共动用了超过150000的兵力和救援人员前往四川救援。
在四川，大型的体育场所被改为临时住所。在地震受灾地区出现了大量帐篷救治点。
在震中东南部的绵阳市，九州体育馆收治了20000名受灾群众。大多数人睡在各方捐赠的毯子上，其他人睡在体育馆的走廊，停车场，斜坡，楼梯间甚至是拳赛场地里。
聚集在那里的幸存者们人人都有痛苦和心酸的回忆。
王子安（谐音）是一名53岁的教师，他和妻子以及16岁的女儿坐在体育馆走廊的地毯上，他的女儿所在的学校倒塌了，她得以幸存。
他说起了地震是如何摧毁了他们的北川县，说起了如何送他的亲戚去医院，他的女儿和她最好的朋友一起被埋在学校的废墟中，而那个朋友就死在她的身边。
“除了彼此，我们一无所有了。”他平静地说，他的家人们望着他。“我们想要回家，但我们如何在北川生活？”
成明礼（谐音）是另一个幸存者，他说他从地震中逃脱，但他的姐姐仍然失踪。
“我把我母亲背在背上，和我的妻子在山里一起走了11个小时。”他说，“一路上一直有石头滚落下来。我们只是一直走直到找到一辆卡车，然后卡车司机把我们带到绵阳。”
他还加了一句，“我只想要一个家。”
一些幸存者看上去很脏，其他人都很沮丧。但大多数人看上去都很疲惫。
医疗队开展了日常医疗检查，到处喷洒消毒剂，有时也对着难民喷洒。
领取食物的队伍排得很长。政府也意识到了要在一个营地照顾如此多的人群是很困难的。
“现在为了防止疾病，我们正开始转移群众，”体育馆的志愿者协调员徐斌（谐音）说，“体育馆里目前人数太多了，很有可能会爆发疾病。”
还有一些问题就是，许多幸存者没有身份证，也没有钱，只能等待政府决定如何补偿他们的损失。
许多人已经不再想要回原来的家了。
“我们不知道会发生什么，但我们不想再住在哪里了，”李婷剑说。她今年54岁，家里五代都居住在北川县。“我听说那里还有余震，山体滑坡，还会有洪水。”