China quake: Death toll up to 80, crippled infrastructure hampers rescue operations

Beijing: At least 80 people were killed in earthquakes that hit southwest China, as crippled infrastructure in the remote area complicated efforts to assess the scale of the disaster.

The Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman with the provincial civil affairs department as warning the toll could climb further because impassable roads and downed communications were making it difficult to collect information.

An earlier report from Friday's quakes had said 67 people were killed and 731 injured when the tremors struck on the border of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, toppling houses and sending panicked crowds onto the streets.

Xinhua did not give an updated figure for the number of people injured when the twin 5.6-magnitude quakes, which were followed by a series of aftershocks, struck the poorly developed region.

Southwest China is prone to earthquakes. In May 2008, an 8.0-magnitude tremor rocked Sichuan and parts of neighbouring Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, killing tens of thousands and flattening swathes of the province.

The Global Times newspaper said the latest tremor highlighted China's continued vulnerability to natural disasters, despite decades of rapidly improving wealth and living standards in much of the country.

"A quake as strong as Friday's... could have caused fewer or even no casualties in a more developed region," it said.

"People who have illusions about China's national strength have to wake up to the fact that many people still live in houses with similar conditions," added the editorial.

Residents described how people ran out of buildings screaming as the two shallow quakes hit an hour apart around the middle of the day. Television footage showed roads strewn with fallen bricks and rocks in Yunnan province's Yiliang county, which appeared to be worst hit.
Authorities were sending thousands of tents, quilts and coats, and Premier Wen Jiabao was also heading to the area, Xinhua said.

Footage on state television network CCTV showed hundreds of people crowded into a sports field in Yiliang.

People took cover outside after the first quake and did not return indoors, said a man surnamed Xia reached by phone. "Lots of people are outside because they fear aftershocks," he said.

"I was walking on the street when I suddenly felt the ground shaking beneath me," posted one witness on Sina Weibo, a microblog similar to Twitter. "People started rushing outside screaming, it still scares me to think of it now."

The US Geological Survey said the first quake struck at 11.20 am (0850 IST) at a depth of around 10 kilometres (six miles), with the second quake around an hour later.

The earthquakes cut off electricity and triggered landslides, blocking roads, Xinhua said.

Li Fuchun, the head Luozehe township, identified as the epicentre, told Xinhua: "Roads are blocked and rescuers have to climb mountains to reach hard-hit villagers."

Peng Zhuwen, a worker at a zinc mine in Luozehe, added: "It is scary. My brother was killed by falling rocks. The aftershocks have struck again and again. We are so scared."

Yunnan's civil affairs department said that 6,650 houses had been destroyed and 100,000 people evacuated. There were also fears of disease after thousands of cattle were killed when sheds caved in.

Rocks as big as four metres (13 feet) across crashed into mountain roads, crushing houses and cars, Xinhua said.

Corner cutting in construction projects leading to shoddy buildings, especially schools, was blamed for the death toll being as high as it was in the 2008 Sichuan quake.

The Global Times said that after the latest quake, authorities should emphasise safety and sustainability in future developments.
"Many would prefer bigger, rather than safer but more expensive, houses or apartments.

"To take the time and invest money in the prevention of natural disasters, which are unpredictable and are unlikely to occur, does not seem like a persuasive proposal to many in China," it concluded.

From: NDTV

A Ferrari crash leaves Chinese playboy dead

Beijing: China's hopes for a smooth, once-a-decade political transition have been shaken by a lurid new scandal involving the death of a senior official's son who crashed during what may have been sex games in a speeding Ferrari.

Details of the March accident in Beijing, which allegedly also injured two young women, have stayed under wraps in China but are leaking out via media in Hong Kong. The media blackout underscores official fears that the public will be outraged by another instance of excess and recklessness among China's power elites.

The embarrassing new wrinkle follows the murder trial last month of a top leader's wife who poisoned her British business associate last year. Both scandals have become bargaining chips in the jockeying for power ahead of a major leadership reshuffle this fall.

The South China Morning Post on Monday cited an unnamed official in Beijing as confirming that Ling Gu, the son of a loyal aide to President Hu Jintao, was the person killed in a March 18 Ferrari accident which initially garnered only minimal coverage in China's state media.

The report said Ling was half-naked when the crash occurred and his two passengers were naked or half-dressed, suggesting they had been involved in some kind of high-speed sex game.

Several other news outlets later cited additional unnamed officials as corroborating details. However, efforts to get officials to publicly confirm the report were unsuccessful. Faxed requests for information to the Public Security Bureau and China's Cabinet were not immediately answered.

The Post's story came just days after the Chinese government announced Ling Gu's father had been transferred to a new position, a move that analysts say ended his ambitions for a post in the upper ranks of the top leadership. Observers said the shift appeared linked to his son's scandalous death.

On Saturday, Ling Jihua was named as the new head of the United Front Work Department and his old job as director of the general office of the Communist Party's central committee was given to Li Zhanshu - thought to be a close ally of Xi Jinping, the man tapped to the China's next president.

As head of the executive office, Li will be responsible for personnel arrangements for the party's top leaders. A comparable position in U.S. politics is the president's chief of staff.

The appointment of Li ahead of a party congress, which should happen in the coming weeks or months, shows Xi is already gaining power. Such personnel changes usually occur during or after the party congress.

China politics expert Bo Zhiyue of the National University of Singapore called the personnel change "a very important signal that a power transition is taking place."

In Communist Party politics, the outgoing leader - who has built a support base while in office - typically attempts to retain power after leaving office, a check on the new administration.

Bo said he thought the shift was being accelerated, creating an arrangement "more in favor of the new leadership than the old one."

Joseph Cheng, a professor political science at the City University of Hong Kong, said that although Ling's new post was not a "serious demotion," it clearly removes him from the center of power.

China's political process is opaque, with jockeying for power happening behind closed doors, so it's difficult to say how big a role the Ferrari crash had in sidelining Ling though most analysts agree it played a part.

"This Ferrari accident certainly caused (Ling's) stepping down," Cheng said. "This means that instead of going further up, he has to go to the second line."

Some feel though that the scandal could be limited to Ling himself and has not significantly eroded Hu's power or tarnished his reputation.

Yang Dali, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, said Ling's departure reflects well on Hu by showing he is "very scrupulous in disciplining his own people" and "willing to penalize his own underlings."

Earlier this year, another top leader, Bo Xilai was ousted as the party chief of the megacity of Chongqing after his wife was declared a suspect in the murder of a British citizen.

Although Bo was a member of the party's 25-member Politburo, which is just below the nine-member Standing Committee in power, he had alienated other leaders with a high-profile crackdown on corruption that even by China's standards trampled on civil liberties. Many observers believe Bo's wife's criminal case was used by his opponents as an opportunity to purge him.

Regardless of the resulting power shifts, it's clear that the government is very anxious about how the public will respond to another case of elites behaving badly and has imposed a strict ban on news and Internet posts related to the Ferrari crash. Such incidents have increasingly sparked public outrage in China.

"There's no doubt the authorities have been very concerned about the revolt, the backlash against the flaunting of privileges, whether its cars or expensive watches, those trappings of power and corruption," said Yang.

He said authorities are very careful to control the spread of such information so it "doesn't stimulate more public anger against the elites."

Cheng noted that few Chinese know about the Ferrari accident and that, if they did, they might see at as too removed from their lives to worry about.

"If there's a Ferrari (crash) case with naked girls in Beijing, well, this is juicy stuff. You get cynical, you feel resentment but you don't do much. You don't protest because it's too far away." 

From: NDTV

Second Chinese flight returns after security scare

Beijing: In a second such incident within a week, a Chinese flight was diverted to an airport in central Wuhan city after receiving a threatening message during the flight, the carrier said.

Shenzhen Airlines Flight ZH 9706, which took off from Xiangfan city in Hubei Province for Shenzhen yesterday night, landed safely at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport at 11:22 PM (local time), the carrier said in an announcement.

The announcement, however, did not elaborate what the message was, which was received at 10:29 PM (local time) when the aircraft was in the air.

No abnormalities were detected on the flight, which departed for New York hours later, the airline said, adding that police are probing the matter.

This is the second similar incident in China's civil aviation industry in a week.

Earlier, an Air China flight from Beijing to New York returned to the Beijing Capital International Airport after receiving a threatening message on Wednesday evening.

From: NDTV