Chengdu Earth Quake 2008...

This is a crazy year for China folks! Besides the 4 meter cracks in my walls everything is fine so far. Death toll as of now is 8000 and there's no way to contact or reach the people at the epicenter.

Despite the bad news, people in the city are handling it well. Just outside my complex, the streets are lined with people sleeping outside!

Some people set up umbrella lean-to's...

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-04.jpg


While other's opt for more complete protection fromt the mosquitoes by setting up tents next to their cars...

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-03.jpg


Which is what we've decided to do...but a little closer to home.
http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-01.jpg

Meanwhile, back out in the streets, the locals are snuggling in together ready for sleep...

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-06.jpg


http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-10.jpg


Other, still buzzing from excitement, are enjoying the experience. It reminds me of the power outtage in NE USA when the people of New York City actually came outside and became friendly with each other, sharing beer and BBQ.

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-07.jpg

What New York didn't have was, of course pick up street games of Ma Jong!

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...Quake08-08.jpg

Although China has it's faults at times, I have to say that this is one super cool aspect of the culture. There will be hundreds of thousands of people sleeping in the streets tonight and making the best of it highlighting one of the most noble features of the human race: good will and comeraderie in the face of disaster!

Sleep tight everyone!

CC

Good to hear that you have survived with relatively minor damage. Thanks for the photos and post - it is good to see what is happening on the ground directly and not from the filtered US media soundbites.

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Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

good will and comeraderie in the face of disaster!

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As it was after the quakes I experienced.......but unfortunately they recover.

Be safe.

Yeah like the cheesy overplayed irritating ear splitting pop song whines....

"Noothing lasst foreeeverr!" :yawn:

It's still nice to have it around, even if only once in a while. :thumbup:

CC

Carl it is good to hear you are ok, hopefully the count won't rise too much more, and too many people won't be trapped in rubble and terrible conditions for long.

4:55AM and had a slight tremor. I can feel it through my computer chair in in my stomach. It may stay like this for up to a week. I hope the death tolls don't rise, but unfortunately, that is rarely the case with these types of disasters in China.

Seriously, don't take anything for granted.

CC

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Originally Posted by Jim

Carl it is good to hear you are ok, hopefully the count won't rise too much more, and too many people won't be trapped in rubble and terrible conditions for long.

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I hope that they will be able to deploy emergency teams quickly.

All the best Carl

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Originally Posted by Brice

I hope that they will be able to deploy emergency teams quickly.

All the best Carl

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Me too, the death toll keeps going up and up. Close to 9000 already and according to the news there are lots more aftershocks coming

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Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

4:55AM and had a slight tremor. I can feel it through my computer chair in in my stomach. It may stay like this for up to a week. I hope the death tolls don't rise, but unfortunately, that is rarely the case with these types of disasters in China.

Seriously, don't take anything for granted.

CC

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Looks like a lot of the mountain roads are out and even helicopters and army mountaineers are having trouble getting through the mountains. I hope this doesn't cause too much trouble for your upcoming trip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

4:55AM and had a slight tremor. I can feel it through my computer chair in in my stomach. It may stay like this for up to a week. I hope the death tolls don't rise, but unfortunately, that is rarely the case with these types of disasters in China.

Seriously, don't take anything for granted.

CC

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Oh I know, like I said though, that's my hopes for that... Terrible tragedy... Hopefully they can get help in there with the damaged roads...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/...art-china.html

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If Burma's reclusive military regime doesn't want Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team, China likely does, a Chinese-Canadian group says.

The Chinese Canadian National Council is urging Ottawa to offer the rapidly deployable military team to help China in the wake of a massive earthquake that struck Monday, toppling buildings, killing thousands and trapping more under rubble. But a foreign affairs spokesman said so far, China has not requested any type of assistance from Canada.

"I'm not asking Canada to ditch Burma," said Victor Wong, the council's executive director. "However, the government of Burma so far has refused aid from the outside world.

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This is some serious stuff here. While I sit here watching my glass-o-water-sizemometer shake for the last 15 minutes straight (that's no joke) there must be thousands of people trying to help victims in the parts which were almost literally wiped off the face of the planet.

ChinaV and I have postponed our plans for a later date, maybe next month. We haven't set a time as of yet but will let everyone know when it happens.

Roads are surely blocked from hundreds of land slides and it started raining last night. Any roads which have not fallen into rivers are almost surely blocked by massive slumps. Crazyness I say! Crazyness!

CC

CC,

Hope you and your wife remain safe and secure. Keep us uptodate on yourself and your city. I want to visit China more thoroughly this fall and would love to stop by and say hello.

chrs

PS Haven't logged on in days and just got your message. Will respond soon.

Last night (May 13) was seismically pretty quiet but this morning we had a nice little aftershock. The rain has stopped and most people have returned to their home except for the older folks who probably like to hang outside.

On the upside, things look like they're calming down a bit in town, but on the downside, our apartment complex guards said our water will be shut off for one week? I guess they're trying to avoid water lines leaking if they break but they seem fine now. Gas stations have lines of car queued up for blocks and it's been like this since the initial quake. Police seem to be doing a good job in keeping things straight but people are still anxious to get their petrol!

Out in the country-side, there are many reports of whole towns being buried in debris with only 20-30 percent of the population surviving. Much of the human excavation has been delayed due to destroyed roads and bad weather (heavy rain) immediately after the initial quake so it looks like death tolls will be unfortunately high.

Count your lucky stars folks! No matter how bad you have it, someone else has it worse.

CC

CC

Glad to hear you and family are doing well in the wake of this sad disaster. My thoughts and meditations are hoping for the best for you and those affected by this earthquake. Hopefully things will not spiral downward in the aftermath.

I found your photo's to be an interesting and informative perspective into what is actually going on as opposed to the hype from CNN etc. I was half expecting to see your name credited under some of the Reuters photo's considering your photography background.

Hopefully you have some nimble moto's at your disposal to get around some of the infrastructure damage on the outskirts.

Best wishes..

Dis

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Originally Posted by Disambiguation

Glad to hear you and family are doing well in the wake of this sad disaster. My thoughts and meditations are hoping for the best for you and those affected by this earthquake. Hopefully things will not spiral downward in the aftermath.

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For the people in the city, this is shocking but a no-brainer. There are some serious lines at gas stations and a rush on bottled water due to a local rumor but besides that there wasn't much loss of life or damage. I think the buildings in the city are also newer and better constructed so I'm sure this helps.

From the video's I seen, many of the buildings that collapsed looked like poor construction. Thin rebar in the concrete is common as well as thin concrete. Some houses looked like they were made of nothing but stacked bricks without mortar which is a guaranteed "pile-o-bricks on your head" in a case like this.

While people in the city are generally fine, the chaos and whole scale catastrophe of what happened in the mountain towns near the epicenter will go on for a while. It will be a couple weeks before the numbers start to settle and over the next several days, the numbers will only grow dramatically.

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Originally Posted by Disambiguation

I found your photo's to be an interesting and informative perspective into what is actually going on as opposed to the hype from CNN etc. I was half expecting to see your name credited under some of the Reuters photo's considering your photography background.

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I sent a couple off to Reuters but didn't hear back. Compared to some other people in this case, I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs...although it doesn't feel like it to me. Taking pictures of these events in China isn't as easy as we'd like it to be. The only foreign crew that tried to get in was kicked out. The "hot" shots would be at/near ground zero but you can't get there. Gasoline is a premium. I spent much of yesterday running around collecting gas from stations 5 liters at a time to avoid waiting in a 2 block line of cars. I am now thankful for a full tank of gas.

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Originally Posted by Disambiguation

Hopefully you have some nimble moto's at your disposal to get around some of the infrastructure damage on the outskirts.

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I really have to say that you REALLY appreciate smaller more gas efficient motorcycles in times like this. You can squeeze through just about any traffic jam and get so much more use out of your fuel.

If some disaster befell me in the US and the roads got all jammed up, you better bet you'd see me and my loved ones heading for the hills on 250 bikes with some belongings and extra fuel strapped on the back. In many different ways, small bikes make more sense.

CC

The after shocks still continue and still more people are being pulled out of buildings. For a while they opened a back route into WenChuan but then yesterday an aftershock centered right underneath the road took out that option.

For those in the city, the aftershocks have been menacing mostly only mentally and sleep schedule wise. I didn't realize they continue for this long.

The following is a map of the location and magnitudes of the original quake and all the aftershocks in the past week near Chengdu. This info is put up by the good guys at USGS. My wife and I timed how long it takes the USGS page to post an aftershock to it's kmz file and it's less than 20minutes! That's quick!

USGS rocks! :clap: For the Google Earth enabled, download the USGS Real-Time Earthquake KMZ here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/...qs7day-age.kmz

CC

1:06AM local time. 6.0 aftershock. This one hit pretty hard. Then immediately comes the high winds and heavy rains. And think...we've got a couple weeks of this left! Rescuing anyone in these condition has to be really pushing the limits of mental and emotional stability.

Anyone know why heavy rains seem to follow earthquakes?

CC

I don't, I was watchin a bit of BBC World News last night and it says the quakes have left 5 million people homeless, not to mention the number of injured or dead, and that the government was going to order an investigation into why so many schools collapsed.

CC

You have Chendu posted under your location.. Is it correct to assume this is the same as Chengdu? When I yahoo Chendu... only Chengdu comes up.

Anyway... out of the 110 Reuters photo's today. The only one out of Chengdu was a picture of a rock strewn street with a dual sport riding down the street. (Almost looked like a red gas can strapped on the back) I thought this surely must be a "Parker Pic", considering your affinity for
these bikes............ Could it be one of the photo's you sent off? Sorry I'm still behind the curve on copying and pasting photo's to post it here.


The majority of the Pics on Reuters today seemed to be north of Chengdu.. not that far away.. and as you mentioned they are the "Hot" shots. Certainly not a place anyone would wish to be.

It has historically been too easy for Americans to fall into a self centered, indulgent view of their situation. Hearing about the effort it took you to just get 5 liters of gas, makes all the complaining about $4.00 a gallon gas back here in the states seem juvenile. A fault perhaps but, great expectations sometimes beget great results..

Anyway... I am going to continue to enjoy my China made 200cc DS and go places no one else can... and feel self indulgent having a full tank and 5 gallons in the garage and no lines at the gas pumps..

Carl, my wishes are with you and your family to stay safe, sane and hope you continue to live out your dreams..

Best Wishes...

Dis

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Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

Anyone know why heavy rains seem to follow earthquakes?

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Not the ones I've been thru.

Hang in there. The aftershocks do get on your nerves, can make some people jumpy, sensitive, emotional and irritable.

Good luck.

Dis,

Much thanks for you well wishes. I want to go into those areas but they are currently heavily restricted and would need a special pass to go in. It's probably already crazy enough as is. I doubt that picture was mine, but it may be a buddy of mine who was trapped in a mountain village only a few kms away from the initial epicenter. I can't tell without seeing it.

Chengdu (with the "g") is the name of the place and is the capitol of the Sichuan province. It is about 60miles away from the epicenter of the first 7.8 quake.

CC

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Disambiguation

You have Chendu posted under your location.. Is it correct to assume this is the same as Chengdu? When I yahoo Chendu... only Chengdu comes up.
....
Carl, my wishes are with you and your family to stay safe, sane and hope you continue to live out your dreams..
Dis

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Just when things were starting to get normal. At 10PM local time, the government makes an official announcement that there will be high risk of more powerful aftershocks for the next two days.

Not sure how they predict this but people are running out of buildings again. :confused1:

CC

This past weekend a few of us took a trip to ChingCheng Mountain near Chengdu to help some fellow riders recover their bikes. MyChinaMoto member "Just Charlie" was trapped on the mountain the day of the earthquake and had to hike down the next morning.

- A sample of the damage caused by the earthquake and successive aftershocks -
http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...heng08-257.jpg

ChingCheng mountain towards the base looks alright but as you get higher theres' dramatically more damage. The army was there working on clearing roads, some of which were totally destroyed.

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...heng08-124.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...heng08-251.jpg

Some landslides had completely crushed some homes, where the corpses still lay buried.

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...ng08-248-2.jpg

Large groups of refugee tents have been set up at the base of the mountain and the area seems to be clean and well stocked.
http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...heng08-300.jpg

The local that are left seem to be in good spirits although they don't seem to have much to do and are very friendly.

http://photos.imageevent.com/mychina...heng08-266.jpg

For more pictures, the full story of the ride and what we saw, please click the following link to a thread on MyChinaMoto titled:

"China Earthquake C-Moto Rescue"
http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250

Ride Safe, Have Fun
CC

hope all of you safe,this earthquake is a nightmare to sichuan people

Yes, it is a difficult time for people who are effected. They seem to be alright though and waiting for someone to help them get new homes. Millions of people without homes living in tents...it's amazing!

Also interesting is they just passed a new rule in Sichuan (maybe all of China) that disallows the use of plastic bags. Now we have to carry bags with us to the store which is okay because there's much less garbage on the streets!

The new law made a big difference over-night and I'm happy to see that. I hope other countries ban plastic bags too...what a waste and eye-sore.

CC