Dams Reported Damaged as Soldiers Reach Quake’s Center
Edward Wong
CHENGDU, China — The possibility of far worse damage from Monday’s earthquake loomed Wednesday after a Chinese government report said that nearly 400 dams suffered damage. State media reported that 2,000 soldiers were sent to try to plug “very dangerous” cracks in one, upriver from the hard-hit Sichuan city of Dujiangyan, official media said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Chinese soldiers marching through mud and debris reached mountain towns at the epicenter of the earthquake on Wednesday, while army helicopters began airdrops of food and medicine in the same area. Officials raised their estimate of the number of people killed to nearly 15,000, with thousands more trapped and missing in remote areas.
Chinese soldiers walked along a partially collapsed mountain road in Wenchuan County as they made their way to the earthquake epicenter on Wednesday. More Photos >
The report on the damaged dams was by the National Development and Reform Commission. Most, it said, were small dams. The most seriously harmed appeared to be to the Zipingpu Dam, near Dujiangyan. The irrigation system in that area dates to the 3rd century B.C.
That city is the site of some of the most horrific scenes in the last few days. A school collapse in a southern suburb killed hundreds of children, perhaps as many as 900. Parents have begun setting up memorials and bodies are still being pulled from the rubble.
Another government report said that, further east, nearer the vast Three Gorges Dam, reservoirs had been damaged. However, there were no reports of damage to the Three Gorges Dam.
The soldiers who reached Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the 7.9-magnitude quake, began ferrying survivors across rivers on plastic skiffs. But in the first township that the soldiers reached, Yingxiu, only 2,300 of 10,000 residents could be confirmed alive, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.
A poor farming region that is home to a famous panda reserve, Wenchuan is believed to be one of the worst-hit areas.
“There is an urgent need for medical staff, medicine, food and drinking water,” said He Biao, the deputy secretary-general of the Aba prefectural government, which includes Wenchuan.
The fact that aid was finally able to reach Wenchuan was a minor triumph in the aftermath of the worst earthquake to hit China in more than 30 years. Until Wednesday, Wenchuan had been completely cut off from the outside world, and the longer it remained completely isolated, the more people would suffer and ultimately die. Half of the survivors had severe injuries, Chinese officials said.
But the threat of further earthquakes and aftershocks remained high across the entire region. A small tremor could be felt here in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan Province, about 11 a.m. Wednesday. Hours later, workers in at least one high-rise hotel asked guests to move to lower floors because of a heightened earthquake alert.
More than 800 police officers arrived in Yingxiu soon after the soldiers broke through. Aerial photos taken from a helicopter flying over one town in Wenchuan County showed empty avenues and row after row of deserted buildings, and what appeared to be a large cluster of makeshift tents on a wide soccer field.
The county, only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Chengdu, a city of about 3 million people, has been cut off from the outside world by rocks and mudslides, and phone services have been entirely disrupted.
The heavy rains that had hampered aid efforts for two days across the entire disaster area, estimated to be the size of Maryland, let up on Wednesday, allowing easier travel and granting a reprieve to survivors huddled together against the cold. The weather had forced the military to cancel ambitious rescue plans that included parachuting hundreds of soldiers into Wenchuan and other hard-hit areas. Wave after wave of landslides had blocked major thoroughfares.
“Sichuan is so tremendously mountainous, it’s difficult to reach some of these areas even without an earthquake,” said Kate Janis, a program director at Mercy Corps, an aid organization that is preparing to send food, medicine and other supplies to some of the hardest hit areas. “The roads are narrow and winding, and it’s hard to get anywhere.”
In Hanwang, an auto-parts factory town at the foothills of a mountain range, some residents ambled through the rubble-strewn streets looking for supplies while others worked with soldiers to dig at debris. They clung to shreds of hope. On the main street, a middle-age man shoveling alongside soldiers atop a mound of concrete that used to be an apartment building said he wanted to rescue his mother, sister and sister-in-law, though he really did not know whether they were still alive.
A photographer in Hanwang estimated that about 70 to 80 percent of the structures had suffered damage, and about a tenth had been flattened. There was no water or electricity. People lived in makeshift tents, and by evening, cooking fires cast an eerie glow up and down the sidewalks. At other towns in the area, people stood in long lines at gas stations.
As of Wednesday afternoon, at least 14,866 people were confirmed dead, Xinhua reported. That number is expected to increase by thousands or even tens of thousands as rescue workers reach more remote areas. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless, and all across the region people have sought shelter wherever they can find it, from sleeping beneath plastic tarps to living in the hallways of soccer stadiums.
Some rare moments of good news emerged on Wednesday. A woman who was eight months pregnant and trapped in rubble for 50 hours was pulled to safety in Dujiangyan, The A.P. reported. Another woman was also rescued shortly afterward.
Safety officials were able to speak to the pregnant woman, Zhang Xiaoyan, while she was trapped, but rescue efforts had to proceed slowly for fear that the rubble above her would shift and collapse.
“It is very moving. It’s a miracle brought about by us all working together,” Sun Guoli, the fire chief of Chengdu, told The A.P.
Andrew Jacobs contributed reporting from Beijing.
Edward Wong on the Aftermath (mp3)
The remains of collapsed buildings in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province, in southwestern China on Tuesday, a day after a powerful earthquake struck. At least 5,000 are dead in the county. More Photos »
Survivors of the quake at a temporary shelter inside a stadium on Tuesday in Mianyang, a city with more than 18,000 missing. More Photos >