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Aid appeal as China quake victims spend third night
freezing
AKSU, China, Feb 27 (AFP) - Thousands of traumatised
villagers spent a third night in freezing conditions
as local authorities appealed for money and tents to
help them through the earthquake that razed 8,000
buildings in northwest China.
Xinjiang regional authorities made the urgent call as
thoughts turned to rebuilding Bachu County, which
resembles a war zone.
Small aftershocks continued to be felt in this largely
Muslim area bordering Kyrgyzstan but no major tremors
had been recorded since Tuesday, said Xinjiang
Seismological Bureau spokesman Zhang Yong.
"Rescue work is going smoothly and has entered the
second stage in which they are beginning to build
temporary houses for the villagers," he said.
"They have sufficient food, but we are desperately
short of tents."
Many of the temporary homes consist of little more
than makeshift shelters made from felt, a traditional
local fabric in a part of China where temperatures
regularly plunge below freezing.
Hu Jiayan, a senior Xinjiang official, said enough
cotton-padded coats and quilts and food supplies had
reached the area and what they needed now was money
for rebuilding.
"In view of the extensive damage in the area, the
reconstruction of housing and industrial start-up will
require a substantial amount of capital," said Hu.
The quake not only carried a heavy toll in terms of
human lives, but will have a severe impact on the
local economy, which revolves around farming.
Some 11,000 head of cattle were killed in Monday's 6.8
magnitude earthquake which centred on the township of
Qiongkuerqiake, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from
Bachu city and east of the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar.
At a farm 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) outside of
Qiongkuerqiake, 190 head of sheep and six head of
cattle had been crushed.
The dead sheep were lined up in neat rows, as farmers
worked feverishly to pull off their skin, leaving the
carcasses to rot.
"The sheep haven't been butchered according to Muslim
prescriptions, and we can't eat them," said Amayti
Sawur, a local resident. "So all we can do is try to
sell the skin."
Some 9,000 children have also been affected and Osman
Mijiti, deputy director of the Bachu education
department, said there was an urgent need for
textbooks, teaching materials, desks and chairs.
Authorities say no schoolchildren were killed in the
quake, although the headmaster at Kazemul School near
Qiongkuerqiake told AFP 13 of his students died before
he was ordered not to comment further by a Han Chinese
official.
There has been speculation that the death toll could
be higher and it is not clear whether the 13 children
are included in the official toll of 266.
The East Turkistan Information Centre, a separatist
group fighting for an independent state in Xinjiang,
said their information was that 300 were dead and
7,000 injured.
The International Red Cross said it had no problem
with the official statistics.
"It's a matter of speculation," said Jasmine Petrovic,
a Red Cross official visiting the area.
Inside the Qiongkuerqiake police headquarters -- which
still carries a portrait of Joseph Stalin a generation
after the Soviet dictator's image was removed from
Beijing's Tiananmen Square -- control was the
operative word.
Officials had been rushed from Kashgar and had set up
a "media center", whose top priority appeared to be
ensuring that no untoward reporting would emerge from
the quake zone.
East Turkistan Information Centre spokesman Rexiti
Dilixiadi claimed Beijing had ordered local cadres in
the area not to talk to the media as the central
government moved to control information from the site.
AFP was expelled from the area early Thursday.
bur/mp/mfc AFP 271118 GMT 02 03
Copyright (c) 2003 Agence France-Presse
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