Asiaing.com: Free eBooks, Free Magazines, Free Magazine Subscriptions

Saturday
Nov 07th
Text size
  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Home arrow Magazine Categories arrow Time arrow TIME Magazine (Asia Edition), May 26, 2008

TIME Magazine (Asia Edition), May 26, 2008

Magazine - Time
Thursday, 22 May 2008

TIME Magazine (Asia Edition), May 26, 2008Heartbreak in China

The Walls Tumble Down
By SIMON ELEGANT/BEIJING, AUSTIN RAMZY/DUJIANGYAN

Zhang Xuede stands near what was once the Xinjian Elementary School surrounded by mud, debris, twisted metal and slabs of concrete. The 70-year-old has kept vigil in the city of Dujiangyan for the better part of a day after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake rocked China's Sichuan province on May 12, flattening the school his grandson attended.

"After the quake hit, I ran to the school and started removing rubble," Zhang says. "I uncovered several children. Some were dead, some were still alive. But I couldn't find my grandson." Unlike many of the other parents and relatives waiting in the rain, Zhang seems drained of hope that his grandson will be found and rescued. When a neighbor asks about the boy, Zhang replies flatly: "He's dead."

That awful realization awaits tens of thousands of Chinese as time inexorably runs out for their loved ones who on May 14 were still trapped in collapsed apartment blocks, homes, schools and factories. A huge relief effort, including 50,000 Chinese soldiers, was under way, but the devastation from the powerful quake, which rocked skyscrapers in cities as far away as Bangkok and Taipei, was vast.

Two days after the first shock, the official death toll had risen to almost 15,000 — and was certain to soar. Whatever the final toll, the Wenchuan earthquake, named for the Sichuan county at the epicenter, will likely be China's worst natural disaster since a quake erupted under the northeastern town of Tangshan in 1976, killing an estimated 242,000. ...

Read TIME Magazine (Asia Edition), May 26, 2008 Online

Full Table of Contents. Free.

You can choose your edition: Asia, U.S., Europe or South Pacific.

Related Articles:

China’s Quake Damage Control
Chinese have grown accustomed to seeing television footage of their Premier, Wen Jiabao, at the site...

China Races to Save Quake Victims
On Jianshe Street in the devastated center of the town of Dujiangyan, amid mud and trash and slabs o...

China Frowns on Patriotic Protests
It’s tough being a hot-blooded nationalist in China these days . Your online rants about treacherous...

The Last Frontier
We are sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop in the toniest neighborhood in Shanghai, around the corne...

Comments (0)add comment

Write comment
quote
bold
italicize
underline
strike
url
image
quote
quote
smaller | bigger

busy
 
< Prev   Next >

Subscribe

 Subscribe to the RSS feed. 

Email Subscription

Lots of FREE books & magazines delivered directly to your e-mail inbox!

Enter your email address:

eBooks, free eBooks
WebAsiaing.com