if u can help..
Thursday, May 15, 2008
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11:26 PM
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of people, left homeless by a major earthquake, tried to keep out the freezing cold Monday as rescue teams tried to bring urgently needed food and medical aid to the area 150 miles north of the capital.
Rescue teams found that the destruction caused by Saturday's 6.2 magnitude tremor in Zhangbei and Shangyi counties in Hebei province was much worse than originally reported.
As soldiers rushed food, coats and tents to devastated rural farm villages, the official Xinhua news agency reported that the quake was now known to have destroyed 130,000 mud and brick houses, affecting 542,000 people. Fifty people were killed and more than 10,000 injured -- 1,200 of them seriously.
After the quake, more than 200 aftershocks have hit the area, and in many villages yet to receive relief supplies, families were too scared to return to their cracked or listing mud, stone and brick homes, opting instead to sleep in haystacks or under makeshift lean-tos.
Doctors were struggling, without adequate medicine or facilities, to treat the injured, Xinhua reported. Many survivors suffered from broken limbs or were burned or scalded as the quake struck just before lunch time, when many sat at home close to their fires.
"I was stoking the fire in my stove when the earthquake started," said one woman. "The shelf and everything on it fell over on me and trapped me. But I was able to crawl free."
State television on Monday showed People's Liberation Army soldiers loading overcoats and makeshift tents on trucks bound for the disaster area. Medical teams, including army units, were also dispatched and Xinhua reported that the authorities sent tons of bread and pancakes to the disaster area.
Witnesses described the region as a barren moonscape of frozen snow and rocky fields with few barriers to the harsh winds sweeping down from nearby Inner Mongoliaand if u can help, these r the links..http://www.salvation.org.hk/english/index.htmhttp://www.wvasiapacific.org/http://www.mercycorps.org/chinaearthquake/?source=1062even a little bit will do..
