Friday, April 23, 2010

China hold a national mourning day for earthquake victim


Newspapers were published in black and white Wednesday China and the flags flew at half mast on official buildings in the country, who observed a national mourning in memory of the quake some 2,000 dead in Qinghai, exactly one week ago.

At 10:00 am (0200 GMT) and gathered a huge crowd of thousands of people observed three minutes of silence in the snow, in Xining, capital of Qinghai Province disaster, according to images broadcast on national television.

Thousands of officials, soldiers, residents and schoolchildren have remained fixed, head down on the vast esplanade of the city center, while qu’hurlaient sirens.

The government declared a day of national mourning for the victims of the earthquake of magnitude 6.9 in Yushu Prefecture, the Tibetan Plateau, which has, as a final trial balance, 2,064 dead and 175 missing.

The quake also killed more than 12,000 injured, a thousand of them seriously, and left some 100,000 homeless.

Early Wednesday, the circulation was interrupted in central Beijing for a short ceremony at half-mast flag in Tiananmen Square, also broadcast by television, which devoted its coverage to national mourning in the morning.

The flags should be at half mast on all buildings of Chinese diplomatic missions abroad, and television programming was purged of all recreational programs.

Theatres, cinemas and other venues have been closed for the day, some activities related to the Shanghai World Expo and canceled football games postponed, media reported.

Foreign television programs focused on leisure or sport, such as HBO and ESPN, have been blocked. The news channels like CNN or the BBC, however transmitted normally.

All major newspapers and their online editions, had black hair calling the 1.3 billion Chinese to observe this day of mourning.

“Yushu, we’re with you,” one wrote in the newspaper Beijing News.

The color was also removed from the official websites of the government.

A week after the quake, rescuers continued to search the rubble, but were hampered by cold, altitude and landslides caused by hundreds of aftershocks.

The earthquake destroyed more than 85% of homes Jiegu city, populated mainly, as the whole region, members of the Tibetan race.

The area has an average altitude of 4,000 meters, is inaccessible and it was not until earlier this week that aid has started to arrive en masse: food, water, tents, blankets and medical equipment.

The roads were covered with ice, making it even more difficult the movement of emergency vehicles, said Wednesday the agency Xinhua. The snow was expected in the day, according to weather services.

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