ROBERT F. BUKATY / Associated Press
Paramilitary police marched in Beijing's Tiananmen Square after the Chinese flag was raised to half-staff today to honor the victims of last week's earthquake. Dozens of aftershocks have rumbled through the region. |
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BEICHUAN, China – Flags flew at half-staff, public entertainment was canceled and 1.3 billion people were asked to observe three minutes of silence as China began three days of mourning today for the victims of the nation's massive earthquake.
Officials asked for the horns of cars, trains and ships and air raid sirens to sound as people fell silent at 2:28 p.m. – exactly one week after the quake splintered thousands of buildings and killed an estimated 50,000 people. Chinese news portal sina.com said the government had ordered all visitors to online entertainment and game pages to be redirected to Web sites dedicated to commemorating earthquake victims.
The Olympic torch relay – a potent symbol of national pride in the countdown to the Beijing Olympics in August – was also suspended during the mourning period.
The national flag in Tiananmen Square, which is raised in a solemn ceremony every morning at dawn, fluttered at half-staff.
Hope of finding more trapped survivors dwindled, and preventing hunger and disease among the homeless became more pressing.
“It will soon be too late” to find trapped survivors, said Koji Fujiya, deputy leader of a Japanese rescue team working in Beichuan, a town reduced to rubble. His team pulled 10 bodies out of Beichuan's high school yesterday.
The steady run of rescue news flashed by the official Xinhua News Agency has slowed. Just three rescues were reported yesterday, including a woman in Yingxiu town who was reached by soldiers who dug a 15-foot tunnel through the wreckage of a flattened power station and had to amputate both her legs to set free, after 150 hours.
“She was in a delirious state” and told rescuers to leave her alone, thinking she was already in a hospital, Xinhua quoted rescuer Ma Gang as saying. “We fed her milk and water, and her family was there to reassure her.”
Dozens of aftershocks have rumbled through the region, extending the damage and fear among survivors. A magnitude 6 temblor yesterday killed three people, injured more than 1,000 and caused further damage to houses and roads, Xinhua reported.
With more bodies discovered, the confirmed death toll rose to 32,476, the State Council, China's cabinet, reported. The injured numbered more than 220,000.
Many bodies lay by roadsides in body bags or wrapped in plastic sheeting, as authorities struggled to deal with the sheer number of corpses by digging burial pits and working crematoriums overtime.
The World Health Organization warned that shortages of clean water and warmer, humid weather in the largely mountainous inland province of Sichuan province, a grain and pork producer – which bore the brunt of the earthquake – could bring epidemics.
The Health Ministry said no major epidemics or other public health hazards had been reported so far, Xinhua said. Two field hospitals with 400 beds have been set up in isolated areas and medical workers have reached all townships affected by the quake, Xinhua said.
The three-day mourning period starting today was the most extensive one the government has ordered since the death 11 years ago of Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the free-market reforms that have brought many Chinese from poverty to moderate prosperity in a generation.
Officials initially resisted changing the relay, which corporate sponsors have paid millions of dollars to fund, though some of the pomp was toned down in recent days. Organizers say the relay will resume in Sichuan next month.
