The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is expected to provide satellite images to China as soon as today [May 19 2008] to assist in damage assessments in earthquake-stricken Sichuan province, a senior defense official said today.

The People’s Republic of China specifically requested imagery of dams, reservoirs, roads and bridges, said Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. Weather permitting and if cloud cover doesn’t hamper the effort, the first images are expected to be delivered today, he said.

The imagery-support request follows two C-17 Globemaster aircraft deliveries of supplies to China yesterday. The loads, delivered to Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, carried food, water containers, blankets, lanterns, generators and hand tools from U.S. military relief stocks in Hawaii and Guam.

While no additional flights are scheduled, the U.S. military remains ready to deliver more assistance, Whitman said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Pacific Command continued humanitarian flights today to cyclone-stricken Burma, Whitman reported. Five C-130 aircraft delivered more relief supplies today, following 10 flights during the weekend. To date, 31 airlifts have delivered more than 727,000 pounds of water, food, mosquito netting, shelters, medical supplies, hygiene supplies and other relief.

“We have no further scheduled flights, but we anticipate that the government is going to permit a similar number of flights, probably tomorrow, as they have in the past several days now,” Whitman said.

Humanitarian aid organizations operating in Burma report that the relief supplies are reaching the affected areas. But without any U.S. military presence on the ground, Whitman said, it’s impossible to verify all aid is getting where it’s needed.

Burma’s military junta has not authorized four U.S. ships on standby in the Bay of Bengal to join in the relief effort. USS Essex, USS Harpers Ferry, USS Mustin and USS Juneau are equipped with 14 heavy-lift and medium-lift helicopters. “Right now, the only thing we have been granted permission for is the C-130 flights,” Whitman said.

He expressed hope that Burma will tap into all the support ready to help. “There is still a good deal of suffering that is taking place in Burma. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue to provide some of that badly needed assistance,” he said.

“So we are going to continue to monitor the situation, work through this problem and, as always, encourage the government to accept outside assistance so we can provide it to those that most need it right now.”

DVIDS
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Canwest Digital Media

“The first full day after the earthquake had come and gone with many tense moments, and the growing sense of what has gone on around us. Even though the University here has declared the student dorms safe for return, the Chinese students seem to have decided on their own to stay clear of many of the buildings. Most of the green space, recreation space, and any space that keeps the rain away have become makeshift tent cities where students have taken shelter. Some people have tarps, but most are making shelters from anything that is available, including bunches of umbrellas. It is becoming clear that we were relatively lucky compared to people even within 20 minutes from here.

“We are indoors tonight, mainly due to the fact that it is cold and rainy outside. We are all on the second floor of the International Residence, a short run down the stairs to the door, which opens into a courtyard. We have made this run about 6 or 7 times today when aftershocks have hit. Strangely now though, when the tremors are small, we all just congregate at the top of the stairs and talk about how this particular shake-up doesn’t require the run down the stairs.

“Another interesting thing we have figured out is that we cannot trust ourselves to detect the tremors. This is mainly due to false alarms, which is something we are all experiencing, particularly when we lay down to try and nap. A more reliable system we have devised is to place a glass (or a bottle) of water on the ground or on a desk whenever we are in our rooms, or anywhere indoors. The tremors cause very clear ripples in the water, and so it has become a bit of a joke among us now how much time we spend staring at water.

“It has also become clear that sitting and waiting is not helping anyone. Tonight we decided as a group that tomorrow morning we are going to downtown Chengdu to donate blood. My hope is that contributing to the relief effort will give us a sense of power in a situation that has led us all to feel quite powerless.”

Earthquake from my hometown

Yesterday I tried to call my parents in the first place after I got the news. At the beginning, I couldn’t put through and after a few tries, I succeeded in hearing my Dad. Fortunately my parents and relatives were safe. My Dad told me they had sensed the trembling for nearly 5 mins and some buildings have been torn rift. My mum and other residents had evacuated from our flat. My hometown was more than 400 kilometers away from the epicenter and I was concerned about the nearer area.

NPR

There were reports that army-led rescue workers had difficulty accessing the disaster area and were hampered by a lack of equipment. But large cranes outfitted with lights operated into the night to lift massive slabs of masonry, said NPR’s Melissa Block, who was at the scene. Ambulances ferried away the survivors.

Dozens of bodies of children were laid out on the ground, waiting for parents to identify them, Block said. Once claimed, the bodies were wrapped in shrouds and brought under plastic tarps. Hundreds of parents waited for hours in the rain for word of their children.

Parents built makeshift shrines and placed the bodies of the dead on pieces of cardboard or plywood as they grieved over the small lifeless forms. Some lighted red candles or burned paper money to send children into the afterlife. Others set off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits. The grim ritual played out by dozens and dozens of families as they kept watch over their babies one last time.

Students also were buried under five other toppled schools in Deyang city.

The earthquake struck in the middle of the day, around 2:28 p.m. local time. People flooded into the streets as the ground shook, and many were trapped in collapsed buildings.

One man said he felt the road start to buckle when the earthquake began.

“The road started swaying as I was driving. Rocks fell from the mountains, with dust darkening the sky over the valley,” a driver for Sichuan’s seismological bureau told Xinhua.

Shanghaiist

UPDATE 82, 12:09am: The New York Times confirms that 2,300 cell phone towers were knocked down. There are “no signs” that the earthquake has damaged the Three Gorges Dam, a few hundred miles east of the epicenter.

UPDATE 83, 12:21am: Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and Russia are all offering assistance in the rescue effort.

UPDATE 84, 12:29am: 61 dead and 176 injured in Sha’anxi province.

UPDATE 85, 12:45am: From Xinhua, China Telecom reporting that fiber-optic cables between Chengdu and Xi’an have been severed resulting in problems with telephone service. China Netcom reports that three Internet routes from Sichuan to other provinces have also been severed.

UPDATE 86, 1:01am: AP reporting that rescue efforts are being hampered by landslides that are blocking the route from Chengdu to Wenchuan

UPDATE 87, 1:27am: Yahoo! News has many photos of the earthquake damage.

UPDATE 88, 1:31am: “Damn the Earthquake Bureau!”

UPDATE 89, 1:49am: And so it begins, less than 12 hours after the earthquake: “Those who died in the earthquake are victims of the economic miracle,” so says The First Post.

UPDATE 90, 2:18am: As we expected, the notice we found on the Sichuan provincial government website of the Abeizhou Seismic Bureau (assuring residents the news of an impending earthquake were just rumours) that we told you about in Update 16 has been removed. We’re not sure when this was removed exactly, but this probably won’t be the last time we’re hearing of the Abeizhou Seismic Bureau. Screenshot still available here for those of you that missed the earlier update.

Our Life and Times in China

Don’t know if you heard, but there was a 7.8 earthquake here today. It was in Chengdu, though, so only a little movement was felt here in Beijing. Jack and Jed had to use their knowledge from the earthquake drills they’ve done and then were evacuated from school for about 45 minutes

Mark’s China Blog

Jackie and I were in my apartment when we started hearing the closed windows banging like the wind outside was howling. A few seconds later my apartment building started swaying. Jackie and I ran to the bathroom of my apartment. I told her to stand in the door frame since I remember from early elementary school that that is the safest place to be in an building during an earthquake. My recently purchased coffee plunger in the kitchen fell off the counter and shattered. A few other things fell off my walls.

Things kind of calmed down but then started up again. We were walking around the apartment trying to find our shoes so we could go outside. At this time, it felt like walking on a cruise ship on a choppy sea. It wasn’t like I was about to fall over, but I did kind of hold on to the walls to keep my bearings.

After the swaying had completely stopped, we walked down the five flights of stairs to the ground floor. I heard hordes of screaming children from the elementary school behind my apartment complex. The children’s wailing made this descent down my stairwell a rather surreal experience.

Jackie and I went outside where a large group of people had already congregated. Everyone was frustratedly looking at their cell phones and trying to use them to no avail. The cell phone network had gone down. It was kind of strange to look at around at scores of people and not see anybody using a cell phone. In China in 2008, this is a rare site.

My Thai Adventure!

Well, I never thought I’d say this having had first hand experience – but earthquakes are scary.

This afternoon around 1.30pm I was sitting quietly at my desk, contemplating how much longer I could put off asking a colleague what on earth his customer was talking about when I noticed a strange, rhythmic creaking noise in the office. I looked around and no one else seemed particularly bothered, so I thought nothing of it and went back to studying my fingernails. Then I thought I felt a bit busy as the room seemed to be moving a bit. And that’s when everyone else looked up and started to look a bit pensive.

No one actually got out of their chair except the boss, who went to look out the window. There was a strange sense of calmness amongst everyone. I had not twigged what was going on yet, but the boss said “yep, it’s an earthquake”. I thought he was joking initially, but then the building started to sway and it felt like being on a rowing boat in a storm. I stood up and staggered back a wee bit, and we all gathered up our bags and congregated in the hall outside.

What do you do when you are on the 24th floor of a swaying building in an earthquake? I would not immediately have said get in the elevator myself, but that is what we did. I have to say that is when I started to panic slightly. There were about 15 people squeezed in and it shuddered and shook all the way down as the building swayed. The building management had not yet sounded the alarm for evacuation, but as our boss had noticed what was happening, we were a step ahead of the crowds. I wondered where we would go as there are nothing but giant tower blocks all around. There is no safe haven in downtown Bangkok, it seems. So we trekked outside and along the road a bit to stand outside a different very tall building and discussed what to do – at which point all the fire alarms in the surrounding buildings went off and people started pouring out onto the street.