Sichuan: Parents wait outside collapsed high school

Video: Two students in a dormitory room at the University of Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, record their experience during the quake and post it to Tudou.com, a Chinese equivalent of YouTube. It is later reposted on YouTube.

A resident of Dujiangyan who helped to rescue people caught in the collapse of a secondary school building said. “The building is three storeys high, with 18 classrooms. All of the sudden the building collapsed. Many people have died. The People’s Liberation Army are rescuing those trapped under the rubble. Such a terrible tragedy. Many parents are having to wait here for news.”

A driver from Dujiangyan said Dujiangyan used to be a tourist spot. “Many people are right now just hanging around in open, public spaces. Most of the buildings are gone. There are now a lot of big holes in the ground.”

A villager in Beichuan saw his 80 year-old father trapped and killed in the collapse of a building. He said: “As I was struggling to get away from our house, I saw some stones crushing him. He had a blood transfusion but it was already too late by then, and he passed away.”

Pangzhou city, near Dujiangyan in the south of Wenchuan county, 10,000 villagers are trapped in mountainous areas. Most of the buildings have collapsed, and rescue teams and disaster relief supplies are unable to get to the city for the time being.

An official from the local municipal government said: “We are waiting for the arrangement of the relief resources and rescue teams now. This is a line for asking for assistance. We are very busy now, so I can’t say too much.”

In Hanwang village, Mianzhu city, to the east of Wenchuan county, 2,000 people were killed and more than 10,000 were injured. 5,000 remain trapped in the area. A resident who worked outside the city called his family who live in the downtown area of Hanwang.

“They are all gone,” he told RFA’s Cantonese service. “Many people were killed. The phones do not work. Only some land lines can get through. Even pagers won’t work. The death toll and injured are very heavy there but no media has covered it. I just learned about how serious the situation is from the Internet.”

Many troops were already stationed in Ganzi following Tibetan unrest there. According to an employee at a hotel in Ganzi, about 300 soldiers left the hotel Tuesday morning. “They all went back to Chengdu. All other troops in other hotels are all gone,” the employee said.

The authorities denied today that they received any advanced signs or technical readouts indicating that there was going to be an earthquake in Sichuan. However, a screenshot from the Sichuan Provincial People’s Government Web site dated May 9 said village officials from Ma’erkang county told villagers there was some kind of concern over the possibility. The statement scotched what it called “rumors”.