Thousands of Chinese earthquake victims fled areas near the epicenter yesterday, fearful of floods from rivers blocked by landslides rattled loose in this week’s powerful temblor.
Soldiers carried older people out of Beichuan Town — one of the areas hit hardest by the magnitude 7.9 quake, whose confirmed death toll jumped to nearly 29,000 — while survivors cradled babies on a road jammed with vehicles and people.
A policeman said that rescue officials were worried water from a choked river would inundate the town.
“The river was jammed up by a landslide; now that may burst. That is what we are worried about,” the policeman said as he hurried by, not giving his name.
“I’m very scared. I heard that the water will be crashing down here,” said Liang Xiao, one of the people fleeing. “If that happens, there will be over 10m of water over our heads.”
Xinhua news Agency said earlier that a lake in Beichuan County “may burst its bank at any time.”
Residents left for higher ground, but 46 seriously injured were still at risk, the agency said.
Further north, a mountain sheared off by the quake cut the Qingzhu River and covered three villages in a valley near Qingchuan.
No traces remained of the villages, swallowed up by a huge mound of earth, behind which water from the river was backing up.
Xinhua said more than 2,000 people were evacuated from near that area.
The confirmed death toll rose yesterday to 28,881, Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin (郭衛民) said. The government has previously said at least 50,000 people were believed killed in the disaster.
More than 10,600 people remained buried in Sichuan Province, the regional government said, according to Xinhua.
Survivors were still being found under destroyed buildings five days after the quake, as the rescue operation grew to 148,000 soldiers and police.
Rescue teams from South Korea, Singapore and Russia began work yesterday, joining Japanese specialists.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so