SURVIVING THE COLD
Rescuers on Wednesday pulled to safety victims of the earthquake, which jolted Jishishan county in Gansu a minute before midnight on Monday, sending many residents in the area out of homes into the cold in the dead of the night.
Survivors face uncertainty in the wintry months ahead without permanent shelter amid freezing temperatures.
Many of the affected families are Hui people, an ethnic minority mostly found in western Chinese provinces and regions such as Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi.
In Gansu’s Sibuzi village, villagers worried about the freezing winter.
“Many people escaped from their homes, some without socks, just ran out barefoot. It’s extremely cold standing on the ground,” said Zhou Habai, an ethnic Hui woman.
The 24-year-old, now staying in a makeshift tent after her home was destroyed, said some villagers have been gathering and burning firewood to keep warm.
About 60 per cent of the survivors have not received tents, 63-year-old Ye Zhiying, from the same village, told Reuters.
He said officials from the Communist Party had told them that the village would distribute tents by noon on Thursday, and would be set up in less than a week.
“Whether everyone can be accommodated or not, we don’t know,” said the Hui villager, who was given a tent on Wednesday.
Roads, power and water lines and agricultural production facilities have suffered damage, and the quake triggered land and mudslides that swept through villages in Qinghai’s Haidong where the missing were reported from.
Source: CNA
