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Callers to RFA's Uyghur Hotline Describe Villages
in Ruins
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28--Residents of China’s
earthquake-stricken Xinjiang were preparing Friday to
spend a fifth night sleeping outdoors in sub-freezing
temperatures, as emergency aid was only beginning to
trickle into the remote region, Radio Free Asia (RFA)
reports.
"We have nothing,” one elderly woman told RFA’s Uyghur
service, asked if her family had received any aid. “We
slept outside...We are just sitting outside now. We
also cook outside,” said the woman, who lives in
hard-hit Chongqurchaq (in Chinese, Qongkurqak) Village.
"My house collapsed," said another Chongqurchaq
resident, also a member of the Uyghur ethnic group
that constitutes a minority in China but a majority in
parts of Xinjiang. “We’ve been sleeping outside for
three days now. The weather is terribly cold. We have
many children in the house. We live downtown in this
village… Most of the houses have collapsed. They are
flattened,” he said. "Some houses partly collapsed,
but you can still go inside. They are quite dangerous."
Both spoke in the Uyghur language on condition of
anonymity. Their comments came through a toll-free
telephone hotline set up by RFA’s Uyghur service in
the wake of a deadly earthquake early Monday that
China says registered 6.8 on the open-ended Richter
scale. The U.S. Geogologcal Survey said it read the
quake at 6.3. The epicenter was 25 miles (about 55 kms)
east of Payzawat (Jiashi), which is about 35 miles (65
kms) east of Kashgar, storied city of the ancient Silk
Road.
Chinese authorities, who have refused to authorize
travel by foreign journalists to Xinjiang's stricken
areas, estimated that around 270 people had died and
some 4,000 were injured in the temblor. But residents
of Chongqurchaq Village said they believed the toll
was significantly higher--and still rising. Several
Uyghur residents estimated the number of quake-related
deaths in their village at about 1,000, with roughly
1,000 more already undergoing treatment in hospital.
More than 10,000 buildings were said to have been
reduced to rubble in Chongqurchaq alone.
Sixty-four people had called the hotline as of late
Friday, and many voiced anger and frustration at the
slow pace of relief efforts. Given the poor
communications infrastructure and rugged terrain there
at the best of times, Uyghur residents of Xinjiang
offered mainly personal anecdotes--and the toll of
dead and injured remains uncertain. But their stories,
taken together, paint a vivid picture of
disaster-driven hardship in what was already one of
China’s poorest regions.
"We have no blankets. We are just looking at the stars,"
said a 70-year-old man in Payzawat (in Chinese, Jiashi)
Village, whose home was destroyed.
“I am staying with my children out in the cold,” said
another Uyghur man from Chongqurchaq, who estimated
that 15 children had died in collapsed school
buildings in his village alone. Asked about official
reports that all the homeless had been lodged in
emergency tents, he replied that his family had
received no temporary shelter. “I guess it may take a
few more days to get them,” he said.
"Our turn has not come yet," said another man, who
reported that officials had handed out tents first to
those who appeared most alone and needy. The director
of a local aid group, the Chongqurchaq Natural
Disaster Relief Organization, reported in a telephone
interview that his office didn't have enough tents to
go around.
A staff member at the Chongqurchaq Village
Agricultural Cooperative meanwhile described the
situation as "quite severe. It is severe at our
cooperative as well. Three people in the family of one
of our [staff] died yesterday morning after their
house collapsed," he said, adding that many people
were still combing the wreckage for survivors.
“I am told that they’ve been taken into shelters,” he
said, referring to those made homeless by the quake.
But in his village, he said, “We are all staying out
in the cold. … I don’t think any schools have standing
buildings. Three schoolchildren died yesterday after
their classroom collapsed at Central Elementary
School.”
“The village hospital is leveled, so all of the
injured are being taken to nearby county or military
hospitals. There are about 30 emergency operation
vehicles around here. Family members are trying now to
bury their dead quickly,” in accordance with Moslem
tradition, he said.
Separately, a 12-year-child reported by phone that six
classmates who had tried to gather up books before
fleeing their school building had been pinned and
trapped beneath a collapsing wall. All but one home in
the neighborhood was destroyed, the boy said, without
giving numbers, adding that his family was eating only
homemade bread pulled from a hole in what remained of
their house.
According to several teachers in Chongqurchaq, at
least 20 schools were holding classes outdoors as of
Thursday--after every school building in the village
collapsed in the earthquake.
On Tuesday, a Uyghur official in at the Kashgar
Seismological Bureau, who declined to be named, said
three Maralbeshi County (in Chinese, Bachu County)
villages were “leveled”: Tot-Ochaq, Seriq-boya, and
Alaghir, which are known primarily by their
traditional Uyghur names. "But the worst damage was in
Chongqurchaq," he said.
RFA broadcasts news and information to Asian listeners
who lack regular access to full and balanced reporting
in their domestic media. Through its broadcasts and
call-in programs, RFA aims to fill a critical gap in
the lives of people across Asia. Created by Congress
in 1994 and incorporated in 1996, RFA currently
broadcasts in Burmese, Cantonese, Khmer, Korean, Lao,
Mandarin, the Wu dialect, Vietnamese, Tibetan (Uke,
Amdo, and Kham), and Uyghur. It adheres to the highest
standards of journalism and aims to exemplify accuracy,
balance, and fairness in its editorial content.
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