Earthquake of a magnitude 7.8 reported in China *UPDATE* 'to top 50,000' killed, page 7

Wakening up to the news that the death toll is at least over 10,000!!!

And the epicenter is out of contact for more than 11 hours!!!

Here are some response to some "concerned" people:

"News how fast and accuracte in a state-controlled media."
- This time incredibly fast. Besides that the premier is there to coordinate the teams, there is no possible way to hide or downplay any information in a disaster of this magnitude. And what is the reason to report only 1000 killed when there is 10,000 unfortunate victims? Death tolls is normally "estimated" at a conservative level, and you will not "confirm" the exact amount if somebody is still only "missing". The CONFIRMED death toll is over 10,000 now, and the epicenter is still out of reach and out of contact, so this will increase

"Pemier Wen Jiaobao arriving first day at Chengdu to coordinate the crisis teams is a CCP PR stunt, even a dumb cat can see it"
- This is where I point out that the world does not understand China. Wen Jiaobao is the second man of China right now with absolute power, he does not need extra PR stunt among his own people. What is needed and he and Hu Jintao analyzed it correctly is a DECISIVE response with full resources to this unprecedented disaster. You need a strong leader with absolute power coordinating all the crisis teams, with many local (corrupted) officials. Many of these local officials HAVE SHOWN that they are INCAPABLE of handling a crisis situation which they are NOT TRAINED for like the last WINTER DISASTER before/during the Chinese New Year. Just imagine how much difference it would have been if Bush or Cheney flew down to New Orleans to coordinate the crisis teams, then you won't see any slow information flow or might have saved 1 life more because the teams did not need to wait for federal approval for a certain action. In a country like China we need the strongest hand possible and the most decisive actions need to be made right away, this can only be done when either Wen Jiaobao or Hu Jintao are there leading the teams.

"Conspiracy of manufactured earthquake by the USA (Bush) or other NWO evils."
- Come on, is anything and everythng related with the USA or the NWO? Don't be so paranoiid. I just checked and Sichuan province happens to be on a territory with a lot of seismic/earthquake actvities. Does the Himalayas ring a bell to many? Last year June/July China had an earthquake of over 6.4 or so in the Yunnan province, we were lucky that it was not a population densed area. Didn't hear the conspiracy theorists back then! Most likely because you never heard it n your news channels. I can tell you, you will not see anyone in China going to blam USA or whoever for this natural disaster!

"Other theories such as the planet X, global warming or the CERN collider test affecting the world, polar changes."
- I am joining this ATS and heard about all these theories, not neccesary actively participating in these threads. But yeah, there is always a possibility that the recent Climate Changes which almost anyone can notice is affected by something. There was an extreme Winter disaster in China, extreme snow storms in places where they never have seen snow, and hundreds of millions were affected by it for weeks. We are expecting the most amount of typhoons this year, one can only assume it also means we will see stronger ones. Infectious diseases and viruses seem to be hitting places where population is densed and the area under-developed, like over 90% of China. And then now the Earthquake of this magnitude, killing thousands. Again, I do not rule out any theories, but I would spend my energy and focus on seeing in whatever way I can help in this crisis. After the cleanup we will see.

"Aid from foreign countries."
- Any aid is welcome, and I believe last night on the way back on the radio some NGOs like the Red cross was aready organizing a lot of activities to collect donations worldwide. Materials were coming from some places I can not recall. But yeah, I think China will welcome aid from every corner, just don't yell that the American navy or whatever "humanitarian" unit from Bush should be deployed in the area. I mean we have over 1 million boys in the PLA, manpower enough. This is not said in a negative or proud way. But I can imagine that communication is the key in a crisis. If you want to send, only send people who can speak Chinese, otherwise it might be counter-productive. In these kind of cases I believe Wen Jiaobao could welcome any experts for consultations, he speak English fluently.

"Why the schools hundreds of kilometres away can collapse so easily?"
- This is a topic which I can always be very furious about. And this is the very reason why Wen Jiaobao flew to there immediately. Too much corruption in China, this is something I and many of my Chinese friends inland and abroad have addressed in public Chinese & foreign forums. Let's forget it for one split second untill the cleanup, and afterwards you will see that the Central leaders will be picking out the local corrupted officials, constructors, developers and whoever involved for bulding these cardhouses and having even children killed! The death penalty await for them. One thing is for sure, nobody will be able to run away from his/her responsibilities! And I bet that we should give more preventive training and information session how to react to a crisis like these immediatly after the cleanup.

"China with an evil government and evil people supporting this government deserve this, bad karma and the like."
- I just hope the hell-keepers will welcome you and won't simply vanish your souls in the nothingness, so no reincarnation or whatever kind is ever possible for you.