Relief Efforts Switch Gears in China

Technocrat

Relief Efforts Switch Gears in China

zogger

Fri May 16 13:51:20 -0700 2008

Science

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China has switched from primarily slow and careful rescue efforts to now moving big quantities of rubble with heavy equipment in an effort to locate bodies and remove them to prevent diseases outbreaks. In addition they are both receiving and soliciting outside help and aid, the first time they have done that since the nation was established in 1949 following their long running civil war.

.."Family members watched with roiled emotions as front-end loaders dug efficiently through the remains of two apartment buildings along Dujiangyan Avenue. "There have been no rescue efforts here, and now they start digging without using life signal detection devices," cried Zhang Shili, whose daughter, brother and mother were buried under tons of concrete of what had been a five-story building. "They explained there are very few of those.""

ed.z.: What with the cyclone in Burma and now this huge quake in China, it sure has been a disastrous month. It also shows clearly how planetary wildcards can effect your life in short time frames and the necessity for being as prepared as possible. You can't really protect against all contingencies, but every little bit helps that you can do in advance. With the earthquake in particular you can see how having all your eggs in one basket might backfire, it is better to have some offsite stashes of food and gear other than your primary residence. A good way to do this is a reciprocal agreement with a friend or relative in another area, they store some of your stuff, you store some of their's, so in the case of an emergency hitting one place, you can always go to the other and have at least some minimal stores to help tide you over. Similar to offsite backup for your data, just with real world basic necessities.

Relief Efforts Switch Gears in China

asdfg

Fri May 16 16:44:52 -0700 2008
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unless, of course, you were one of the 10,000s of poor souls who were crushed to death where they sat; were wiped out by the tsunami; or drowned in the cyclone; etc.

my father was one the people worried about the y2k issue. He was stocking up water & canned food (not practical either, beanie weenies & crap. It was hilarious at the time). He was diagnosed w/ cancer & was dead in 8 months. The irony of throwing away those cans after he passed was not lost on us. I don't begrudge anybody caching food like a squirrel buries nuts in the woods or living in survivalist mode. It doesn't cause anybody harm. But we all must know we are most likely to die in a car wreck, or of cancer, a heart attack, or alzheimer's (that's a real fun one) -- just anyonymous worker bees dying in unremarkable ways. quickly forgotten by all but our immediate family.

Survivors

zogger

Sat May 17 07:39:36 -0700 2008
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Of course I was meaning those who actually survived a disaster, not feeding the zombies..... Then there's scale and type of disaster. There are more than large scale natural disasters, you can have just a personal disaster such as economic with a sudden unexpected job loss from some reason or another, and your stored food will help carry you through to the next incoming check for example (certainly helped me for six months before, after an accident and I was unable to work at all, not having to worry about the groceries, freed up savings for other bills). And the whole issue in survivalism with stored foods is store what you eat, eat what you store. You rotate your stock in a sane and rational manner and have short, medium and long term storage foods. This also makes economic sense when looking at fast rising food prices, it is cheaper to buy in bulk whenever possible.

This is an involved subject and I have tried to touch on some of the aspects to it numerous times here. Your views are *highly simplistic* based on what you said, and sorry about your dad too. There was no reason to chuck out the food, it should have been used inside its expiration period or donated in advance of that to a food distribution charity org perhaps. Basically, you have two choices, preparedness, or non-preparedness. If you want to take your chances in life with a couple days food at home, nothing for water except what comes out of the tap, go right ahead, nothing stopping you, but perhaps for others to also be able to help neighbors in an emergency is considered a nice thing to be able to do. Would you dis the red cross for having stockpiles in advance? No? Then why is it weird for individuals or families to have them as well?

For the entire history of the human race people have put back stores, it is really only very recently historically that it fell out of fashion, and then only in some places. To me, 100% relying on the "just in time" infrastructure and delivery system is pretty short sighted. Your reality can go from normal and comfy to OMG THIS SUCKS in one minute. Blizzards, quakes, hurricanes, suicide squirrels taking out a substation, who knows, stuff just happens. What's going to happen when/if the straits of hormuz get closed from an expanded mideast war? Over 200 barrel oil in 10 minutes on the market? Shoot it could hit $500, no one knows. And suppose such a war knocks out the oil production facilities there, meaning such an energy crisis could last years?? What will that do the everyone's economy then, what will stuff really cost? There are so many potential wildcards out there that I, and a LOT of other people think it is a better idea to be logically prepared to keep on covering life's basic necessities than not. No one really questions dropping a lot of money on toys, but when it comes to a similar amount for preparedness items it becomes "controversial" and deserving of much hooting and guffawing? We have spare tires in the trunks of cars for a reason, most of the time you don't need it, but when you do, no substitute for it. Most of the time we don't need fire extinguishers, but when we do, comes in real handy. Same with all the other stuff, most of the time the stores are open and everything is working, but when they aren't..sucks to be the ones who have zero stores. Most of the time clean water just flows from the tap..but sometimes it doesn't, happens rather randomly across the US anyway. Most of the time the electricity works, but sometimes it doesn't..might last a week or weeks, too. And so on. Myself, I have chosen to "squirrel away" food instead of "squirreling away" a big plasma TV. I squirreled away a pretty decent medical kit instead of expensive shiny rims for the car or some 1000 watt sound system. I squirreled away some solar panels instead of a high end computer to play videogames on. I put away a generator instead of going out to eat a lot. And numerous examples. Everyone has choices there.

One of the hardest things I've ever done

TykeClone

Fri May 16 21:17:48 -0700 2008
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occured at a small plane crash we responded to. The pilot was doing a flyover of a relatives acreage and misjudged the height of the trees, clipped them , and crashed into a corn field. I happened to be on call as an ambulance driver that day so we pulled up into the yard with lights running and followed by the fire department. As many small plane accidents are, this one was fatal and I turned off the lights on the ambulance and took it back to the shed while his mother was still on the yard. She had family and other responders out there at the time, but that was a tough thing to do.

This is like that times 10,000

Source, please

Alan

Sat May 17 03:46:19 -0700 2008
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The summary says "they are both receiving and soliciting outside help and aid, the first time they have done that since the nation was established in 1949 following their long running civil war."
That isn't in the Washington Post article linked, and I'm pretty sure it isn't true.
Here, for instance, reports of "Assistance to Xinjiang earthquake victims" in 2003.
Here reports of Japanese aid for that earthquake.
I'm sure the international Red Cross has been active in most disasters in the last 20 years or so.

Source, please/OK

zogger

Sat May 17 06:55:19 -0700 2008
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You are correct, I should have worded that better. I was talking about people coming in. An article from yesterday from a Chinese paper. I had read similar in some other places so that is what I wrote. I couldn't remember the first exact source though, but there are numerous references to it in various articles, thousands of articles up now about the quake though. first paragraph quote "A group of earthquake relief professionals sent by Japan arrived in southwest China's Sichuan Province Friday to become the first foreign rescuers working in China since 1949."