2008 Sichuan earthquake

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This morning, I woke up to a mild earthquake. 80km from where I live in Sichuan province, there was an earthquake 6.6 on the Richter scale. It struck near a city, so there are 71 deaths so far, and tremendous structural damage. 90% destruction in one area of the city Ya'an.

It got me wondering how much real news comes out of China. Stories that are relevant for proving one ideological narrative or the other do get international attention, but practical stories seem to get much less interest in international news.

Does anybody remember hearing about the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan? It had a tremendous death toll of 70.000. The 8.0 earthquake struck near the city Mianyang, also not far from here. People speak of it like it was the biggest disaster they know, but I'm ashamed to say I hadn't heard of it at all when I arrived here over a year ago. It was covered in the news, I'm sure, but the level of attention it got made all the difference to whether I remembered it or not. And I didn't.

News coverage in China seems to be less than satisfactory, but this has twofold causes: Censorship by the Communist regime, and a desire by foreign media to fuel an ideological narrative against said government, often resulting in news reports only focusing on politically relevant news stories, and not even discussing those objectively either.

The 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean was a lot more vidid. The death toll was higher of course, but the fact that multiple nations were involved, western tourists were killed, and countries that the west likes and cares about were struck, seems to have played a role too.

The 2005 earthquake centred around the city Bang, a.k.a. Kashmir earthquake, happened in 2005, killed 100.000 people. Unlike 2004, the west did not rush to their aid, and muslim countries could muster a whopping 10 million dollars in aid to rebuild the area. Well, this is the story I remember reading about it at the time, but wikipedia talks about 5.4 billion in aid, so I don't know what to think.

Apparently the aid packages in 2004 to Indonesia were a bit appalling: Australia sent enormous amounts of long-expired medicines, and even *breast implants*!!
"Oh, I lost my home and family, what can I do with my life?"
"Australia has an idea: Bigger juggs makes everyone happy!"
But seriously, the aid donated to regions struck in 2004 was massive [pun not intended], although the distribution of donations was often uneven between the recipient countries.

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake received mainly donations from within China. I read on wiki that Saudi Arabia was most generous, with $40million. China seems to be universally disliked by most foreign countries, but I wonder if that is entirely deserved..? I just wish the media would be a bit more objective sometimes.

---------- Added 0 hours, 13 minutes and 39 seconds later... ----------

first english link i could find:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/04/201342003155904436.html

deathcount is confirmed over 100 now...

 

I think this may have less to do with everyone hating China and more to do with China being a world leader and therefore they should be able to take care of themselves. How much money from the rest of the world poured in to the United States for Katrina and Sandy relief? Was there any?

 

I think there was but yes countries like the US, Sweden and nowadays even China are kinda expected to take care of themselves.

 

Still, I think it should be more known. Japan is a world leader, yet we all knew about the tsunami/nuclear power plant disaster. Yes, there was worry that it would somehow affect people farther away due to gases, but it seems we still should at least have known about the China earthquake, even if there was no major campaign to send aid. I certainly don't remember hearing about it.

So, following Snook's comment: did the rest of the world hear about these hurricanes (Katrina and Sandy) and remember them, even if they did not send aid? Like Snook, I don't know whether the U.S. received aid or how much.

I also cannot imagine the frustration I'd experience if the only news of the country I was living in was completely politicized. I feel for you, coineineagh.

 

I guess that's a good point. Of course other countries knew about Katrina, and we were all appalled by the slow speed of relief efforts just like Americans. Cuba and other counties made offers to send aid, but they were probably intended more as insults than genuine offers.

I guess it's more about the news coverage. People care when America gets hit by a catastrophy, despite all the international political issues. The Boston bombings were reported on the news in China, and Chinese viewers were geniunely concerned.

But if a major catastrophe happens in China, it is 'far-from-my-bed-news' (a Dutch expression). Chinese are people too, and despite all the international political issues, they deserve some international attention if there's a major catastrophe. By major I'm not talking about the 6.6 earthquake with 150+ deaths yesterday, but the 8.0 in 2008, with 70.000 deaths. They hold a memorial for it every year. Last time it was held, the square near my house was a sea of candles in the evening.