Rescuers searched for earthquake victims amid the debris of a hospital in Dujiangyan on Monday night.

On Tuesday morning, Wang Guofei and his younger brother drove to look for their mother in the rugged southwestern county of Beichuan, where at least 5,000 people have died as a result of Monday’s earthquake. But the road had been washed out by a landslide, and Mr. Wang said he would return the next day and search for his mother on foot.

“She has potatoes,” he said. “She can live for a while.”
Edward Wong (’98) together with Jake Hooker report for The New York Times.

Read the full article.
Photo via New York Times via Reuters.

A earthquake devastated southwestern China on Monday, killing as many as 10,000 people and trapping hundreds of others under flattened buildings, state media reported. After an update on the impact of the quake, Time Magazine’s Beijing correspondent, Austin Ramzy (’03), discusses details and rescue efforts on PBS’s Online News Hour.

Watch the video.

Earthquake map from the USGS.

The Indian government has been mining low-grade uranium on tribal lands for decades, but it plans to expand production so that nuclear power will eventually meet a quarter of India’s energy needs. The risks of pursuing that policy made international headlines in 2006 when a uranium waste pipeline burst in the east of the country, creating a devastating spill. FRONTLINE/World reporter Sonia Narang (’08) travels to this remote area to find out how the mines are affecting the health and traditions of villagers, and forcing thousands off their lands.

Watch the multimedia report.

Since security is all about preventing any major threat to human life, the effect of the deadly cyclone that hit Burma last Saturday must be seen from a serious human security perspective. However, the Burmese military junta is far from comprehending such a humane concept. Min Zin (VS ‘01), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

Read the article.

BEIJING — A team of climbers trudged through snow and ice to carry the Olympic torch to the summit of Mount Everest on Thursday, fulfilling a long-held goal of the Chinese government to have the Olympic flame lit on top of the world’s highest mountain. Edward Wong (’98) reports for The New York Times.

Read the full article.

Everyone is running out of words to express their feelings about the Burmese generals. What the generals are doing is making the world furious. It’s time to call their actions a humanitarian crime.

It’s impossible to find logical reasons for the junta’s rejection of adequate help from the UN, the US, the EU and the world’s relief agencies. Clearly, it’s hubris, xenophobia, fear and a callous disregard for the lives of the Burmese people.

“It’s a crime against humanity,” Pierre Fouilland of the Comité de Secours Internationaux, a French disaster rescue agency, told Reuters after he was denied a visa by the Burmese embassy in Bangkok. “It should be against the law. It’s like they are taking a gun and shooting their own people.” Kyaw Zwa Moe (VS ‘06), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

Read the article.

DUJIANGYAN, China — The children who were considered fortunate escaped with a broken bone or a severed limb. The others, hundreds of them, were carried out to be buried, and their remaining classmates lay crushed beneath the rubble of the schoolhouse. Edward Wong (’98) reports for The New York Times.


Read the full article.