Earthquake News
Saturday, 17. May 2008, 01:53:41
By Chris Buckley
Mon May 19, 2:25 AM ET
BEICHUAN, China (Reuters) - Flags flew at half mast across China and the Olympic torch relay was suspended as the country began three days of mourning on Monday for more than 30,000 victims of an earthquake that struck a week ago.
ADVERTISEMENT
But the search for survivors went on in the stricken southwestern province of Sichuan as families refused to give up hope for their loved ones, and rescuers found two more people alive in the rubble.
Around the vast country of 1.3 billion people, air raid sirens and car, train and ship horns will sound to "wail in grief" at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT), the time the quake hit a week ago, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The national flag in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing flew at half mast after a ceremony at dawn.
"I have come today with a heavy heart," said Liu Xianzeng, watching the ceremony in Tiananmen Square. "I feel for the victims of the earthquake and soldiers who are helping there."
Public entertainment was halted and a three-minute silence was also to be observed to mark exactly a week since the quake, the government said.
The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and the futures exchanges in Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Dalian would halt trading for three minutes from 2:28 p.m.
In Beichuan, one of the worst hit towns in Sichuan, relatives continued to travel back into the disaster zone to look for family members and see the damage for themselves.
"It's a good idea but maybe it's a bit early,' said Zhou Wanli of the national state of mourning, sitting in the back of a truck heading into Beichuan.
"All we can care about for the time being is finding our relatives. We don't want to memorialize them if we don't even know if they're alive or dead," he said.
SURVIVORS RESCUED
The official death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake stands at nearly 32,500.
Some 220,000 people are reported injured and a further 9,500 are thought to be still buried under the rubble in Sichuan. Most are feared dead, but some are still being pulled out alive.
Statistics from past earthquakes show victims have survived up to nearly a fortnight under rubble.
There was a burst of elation in ruined Beichuan, when one woman was found alive.
Wang Hongguo, head of the rescue team, said she had found her under a mass of concrete. "We had to pull her out very gradually. She looked quite sturdy, so she might pull through," Wang said.
Rescuers also found a 50-year-old woman alive in the wreckage of a residential building at the Tianchi Coal Mine.
But seven days after the quake, rescuers mostly had the gruesome job of recovering decomposing bodies. Dozens of bodies were pulled from the rubble in Beichuan on Monday, and rescuers scattered lime and splashed disinfectant to prevent disease.
Even with hundreds of troops poring over the wreckage, some using specialized equipment and sniffer dogs, others carried on the search themselves.
Farmer Wang Hongchen and his wife Chen Guangfen scrambled over hundreds of meters of rubble to look for their son, who worked as a mobile phone repair man in the town.
"I think there's still hope. He worked on the first floor, so if he was lucky there would have been space for him to survive," Wang said, in between shouting out his son's name over the ruins.
"There's nothing I want more than to find him alive," added Chen. "Other people who know their relatives have died can call this a memorial day, or a funeral, but not me yet."
Officials have tried to keep people from the area because of aftershocks and a build-up of water in blocked rivers. Xinhua said the most dangerous mass of water was only about 3 km (2 miles) upstream from Beichuan.
Rescuers had yet to reach all the stricken villages, Xinhua reported. By late Sunday, 77 villages were still cut off.
China says it expects the final death toll to exceed 50,000.
Huge tent cities have sprung up in Sichuan to accommodate about 4.8 million people who lost their homes. A Foreign Ministry spokesman appealed to the international community to provide more tents, Xinhua reported.
Donations from home and abroad have topped 6 billion yuan ($858 million).
($1=6.990 Yuan)
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jeremy Laurence
You must be prepared to help your neighbor...at all times...at all costs ! Even if they hate you...at least they won`t hate you while you are helping them !
Lets Pray for Them...because it could easily be us ...anywhere anytime ! 
Couple tell of earthquake terror An expat from Gloucester has spoken of his "13 minutes of terror" as he and his wife escaped from the 26th floor of flats during the earthquake in China.
Dave Tait and wife Kiki were visiting the apartment of friends Ralph Johnson and his wife Lisa in Mianyang in Sichuan province.
Mr Tait said they were buffeted from side to side hitting the stair walls as the building swayed by up to a metre.
"Loud booms and bangs from the building made it even scarier," he said.
People were screaming, women crying and there was rubble everywhere
Dave Tait
The former presenter at BBC Radio Gloucestershire had been visiting the city for a few days.
Mr Tait and his wife were drinking coffee on the flat's balcony with the Johnsons - also formerly from Gloucestershire - when Monday's earthquake happened.
"Although the 'quake only lasted 13 minutes it took longer than this to get down the stairs," he said.
"People were screaming, women crying and there was rubble everywhere. The top 10 floors appeared to be worst affected, I guess because the sway up higher was greater. But, even as the tremors got less there was always the chance bigger ones could follow."
The couple said thousands of people were running in all directions trying to get away from the building.
Chinese officials fear up to 50,000 may be dead and say almost five million people have been left homeless by Monday's devastating earthquake in China's south-western Sichuan Province.
================================================================================================
Earthquake in China
Earthquake, worries jolt Chinese Americans in Atlanta
Immigrants join earthquake relief effort
By MARY LOU PICKEL, KEN SUGIURA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/18/08
Frank Zhou learned about the earthquake in his home province in China when he woke up last Monday. Within hours he was e-mailing leaders of Chinese organizations throughout Atlanta to coordinate a disaster response.
"We received the first check on Tuesday," said Zhou, head of the Chinese Business Association of Atlanta.
AP
(ENLARGE)
Details of the affected area in China
Elissa Eubanks/AJC
(ENLARGE)
From left, Kab Lee and Xiao Shengam watch the news coverage at Atlanta Chinatown Square shopping center in Chamblee.
HOW TO HELP:
This weekend and next, Atlanta's Chinese community will collect donations for victims of the Sichuan earthquake at locations throughout the metro area from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Here are a few locations, and also addresses to send checks:
Atlanta Chinatown Mall, 5383 New Peachtree Road, Chamblee, GA 30341
Super H-Mart, 2550 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth, GA 30096 (678) 543-4000
Buford Highway Farmers Market, 5600 Buford Highway N.E., Doraville (770) 455-0625
Atlanta Farmer's Market (Formerly Hong Kong Market, at Plaza Fiesta) 4166 Buford Highway NE, Atlanta, GA 30345 (404) 325-3999
Chinese Business Association of Atlanta, 2160-F Hills Ave. NW, Atlanta, GA 30318. Make check payable to CBAA (Non-profit organization), make note on check memo "For China Earthquake Relief Fund." To pay by credit card, visit Chinese Business Association website, click "Donate" on top left, follow instructions.
Atlanta Sichuan-Chongqing Association, 741 Catamount Way, Lilburn, GA 30047. Make a payment to SCearthquake Fund (To set up payment through online banking, send to Emory Alliance Credit Union, use routing number: 261172308; account number: 0000000066678)
Also, major relief agencies are collecting money for aid to victims in Myanmar and China:
Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services
800-736-3467
Mail checks to: Catholic Relief Services
P.O. Box 17090 Baltimore, MD 21203-7090
CARE
CARE website
1-800-422-7385
151 Ellis St. NE
Atlanta, GA 30303-2440
Designate Myanmar Cyclone Response Fund
Baptist Global Response
Baptist Global Response
615-367-3678
402 BNA Drive, Suite 411
Nashville, TN 37217
Earthquake in China:
Dramatic photos: Thurs. | Wed. | Tues. | Mon.
Latest story on the earthquake
Help poster (PDF)
Local groups' letter appealing for help
Lian Colburn of Alpharetta, a Chengdu native, created a website regarding the earthquake: Blog
Already some 30 Chinese groups representing professionals, alumni and associations from various provinces, have raised about $50,000 for the newly created Atlanta China Earthquake Fund Drive Committee, Zhou said.
"It is very touching. It moved me very much," he said, choking back emotion.
This weekend the Chinese relief committee planned to solicit donations at Chinatown and Asian supermarkets around the metro area. It will set up an effort at Zoo Atlanta, said zoo spokeswoman Keisha Hines Davis .
As an international city, Atlanta is accustomed to lending a hand when major disasters strike. The city is home to CARE, the Carter Center, and scores of churches and relief groups.
Communities reach out
Metro Atlanta's civic and ethnic groups organize in various ways to help victims of natural disasters, war-torn villages and poverty-stricken hometowns.
The city's immigrant enclaves stretch from Buford Highway, home to large populations from Mexico and Central America, to Clarkston, where refugees from sub-Saharan Africa have settled. Duluth is the area's new Little Korea. Even Zoo Atlanta has an international link. Prized pandas, Lun-Lun and Yang-Yang hail from the Sichuan Province where the 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck.
Atlanta's Chinese community, estimated at 100,000, makes good use of mass e-mails to keep abreast of developments in such disasters as Monday's quake. The many educated professionals — engineers, computer programmers and students — surf Mandarin-language chat rooms and post blogs.
Friends flooded Lian Colburn of Alpharetta with calls and e-mails asking about her family in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province.
"It's just devastating. It's unbelievable. It's beyond words," she said.
The former IT architect manager for UPS created a Web site to respond.
In her blog, Colburn describes how her sister's car started jumping when the earthquake hit. She pulled over, checked the tires and turned off the engine. "The car was still jumping!!!" Colburn wrote. "That's when her sister heard people yelling, "Earthquake!"
At the Atlanta Chinatown Mall, Victoria Xue sat in the food court with family and friends watching a wide-screen TV with satellite news from China.
"We just watch TV everyday," said Xue, who is from Beijing, in northern China, far from the epicenter.
While Chinese have banded together through cyberspace to raise money here, other immigrant groups use other means to organize.
The estimated 100,000 Korean-Americans in metro Atlanta count on multiple news sources for community-related fund-raising. Two radio stations, including the 50,000-watt Atlanta Radio Korea, and four daily newspapers reach a majority of the community, said Jay Eun, president of the Korean American Association of Greater Atlanta.
Two years ago, after flooding caused dozens of deaths and left thousands homeless across the Korean peninsula, Eun's group sought the help of radio stations and newspapers to spread the word about fundraising efforts.
Atlanta's Filipino community, which Filipino-American Association of Greater Atlanta president Willy Blanco estimated to be greater than 35,000, relies heavily on e-mail lists the association has compiled.
They used the e-mail lists to raise money for victims of the 2004 tsunami that devastated Thailand.
The Lost Boys of Sudan, a group of orphans who fled civil war in their homeland almost 20 years ago, tend to organize along tribal lines. A group at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Stone Mountain hails from the Rumbek region of Sudan. They are raising money to build a children's center in their home village. Another group is raising money for water wells for their Panaruu community.
That model of relief is partly because Sudan is so war torn and villages so isolated, that very focused efforts make the most sense, said Gini Eagan, pastoral associate at Corpus Christi.
Mexican immigrants have organized 14 hometown associations in which residents from the same rancho send money back for projects such as schools and clinics. The Mexican community in Atlanta, estimated as high as 500,000, tends to rally to appeals from Spanish-language radio stations, said Armando Bello, spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta.
Relief agency efforts
Institutional relief agencies are already on the ground to help. At the time of the cyclone, CARE, the Atlanta-based international humanitarian agency, had 500 staffers in Myanmar involved in water, sanitation, food security and HIV/AIDS projects. Since the disaster, "it's almost all hands on deck to respond," said Lurma Rackley, CARE spokeswoman.
Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist relief organization, has a team of volunteers in Thailand waiting to go into Myanmar and plans to send a group to China.
While the American Jewish Committee has not sent relief workers to China, the group's international aid arm has sent a small group to Myanmar to help identify remains of cyclone victims, said Judy Marx, executive director of the Atlanta chapter of AJC.
"Israelis, sadly, are experts at DNA investigations and forensics investigations," Marx said.
Catholic Relief Services' international arm is working with local partners in Myanmar to help about 40,000 people with food, water, shelter and medical care, said Cullen Larson, Atlanta southeast region program officer of CRS, which operates in about 100 countries.
"We have immediate insight into situations, and the ability to respond because people are there."
Catholic Relief Services raised $195 million in aid for the 2004 tsunami, Larson said. The Chinese government hasn't asked the agency for earthquake help, he said.
Cang Li, of the Atlanta Sichuan-Chongqing Association, says the new Atlanta relief group plans Monday to wire proceeds from fund raising to the Chinese Red Cross.
"We want to do this as quickly as possible because right now the people really need help."
In Alpharetta, Colburn wants to organize a fund raiser at Lake Windward Elementary, where her second-grader attends. "It doesn't matter how much money, it's just the thought that counts from the child's point of view," she said.
Colburn's parents, live with her, but had gone home to China in April for a visit. She has been in contact with them and they are safe.
Her kids ask for frequent earthquake updates, she said.
Everyday they come home and ask, "Were you able to talk to grandma?"
Staff writer George Chidi contributed to this article.
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Expand this list
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BEICHUAN, China (Reuters) - Flags flew at half mast across China and the Olympic torch relay was suspended as the country began three days of mourning on Monday for more than 30,000 victims of an earthquake that struck a week ago.
ADVERTISEMENT
But the search for survivors went on in the stricken southwestern province of Sichuan as families refused to give up hope for their loved ones, and rescuers found two more people alive in the rubble.
Around the vast country of 1.3 billion people, air raid sirens and car, train and ship horns will sound to "wail in grief" at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT), the time the quake hit a week ago, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The national flag in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing flew at half mast after a ceremony at dawn.
"I have come today with a heavy heart," said Liu Xianzeng, watching the ceremony in Tiananmen Square. "I feel for the victims of the earthquake and soldiers who are helping there."
Public entertainment was halted and a three-minute silence was also to be observed to mark exactly a week since the quake, the government said.
The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and the futures exchanges in Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Dalian would halt trading for three minutes from 2:28 p.m.
In Beichuan, one of the worst hit towns in Sichuan, relatives continued to travel back into the disaster zone to look for family members and see the damage for themselves.
"It's a good idea but maybe it's a bit early,' said Zhou Wanli of the national state of mourning, sitting in the back of a truck heading into Beichuan.
"All we can care about for the time being is finding our relatives. We don't want to memorialize them if we don't even know if they're alive or dead," he said.
SURVIVORS RESCUED
The official death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake stands at nearly 32,500.
Some 220,000 people are reported injured and a further 9,500 are thought to be still buried under the rubble in Sichuan. Most are feared dead, but some are still being pulled out alive.
Statistics from past earthquakes show victims have survived up to nearly a fortnight under rubble.
There was a burst of elation in ruined Beichuan, when one woman was found alive.
Wang Hongguo, head of the rescue team, said she had found her under a mass of concrete. "We had to pull her out very gradually. She looked quite sturdy, so she might pull through," Wang said.
Rescuers also found a 50-year-old woman alive in the wreckage of a residential building at the Tianchi Coal Mine.
But seven days after the quake, rescuers mostly had the gruesome job of recovering decomposing bodies. Dozens of bodies were pulled from the rubble in Beichuan on Monday, and rescuers scattered lime and splashed disinfectant to prevent disease.
Even with hundreds of troops poring over the wreckage, some using specialized equipment and sniffer dogs, others carried on the search themselves.
Farmer Wang Hongchen and his wife Chen Guangfen scrambled over hundreds of meters of rubble to look for their son, who worked as a mobile phone repair man in the town.
"I think there's still hope. He worked on the first floor, so if he was lucky there would have been space for him to survive," Wang said, in between shouting out his son's name over the ruins.
"There's nothing I want more than to find him alive," added Chen. "Other people who know their relatives have died can call this a memorial day, or a funeral, but not me yet."
Officials have tried to keep people from the area because of aftershocks and a build-up of water in blocked rivers. Xinhua said the most dangerous mass of water was only about 3 km (2 miles) upstream from Beichuan.
Rescuers had yet to reach all the stricken villages, Xinhua reported. By late Sunday, 77 villages were still cut off.
China says it expects the final death toll to exceed 50,000.
Huge tent cities have sprung up in Sichuan to accommodate about 4.8 million people who lost their homes. A Foreign Ministry spokesman appealed to the international community to provide more tents, Xinhua reported.
Donations from home and abroad have topped 6 billion yuan ($858 million).
($1=6.990 Yuan)
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jeremy Laurence
Couple tell of earthquake terror An expat from Gloucester has spoken of his "13 minutes of terror" as he and his wife escaped from the 26th floor of flats during the earthquake in China.
Dave Tait and wife Kiki were visiting the apartment of friends Ralph Johnson and his wife Lisa in Mianyang in Sichuan province.
Mr Tait said they were buffeted from side to side hitting the stair walls as the building swayed by up to a metre.
"Loud booms and bangs from the building made it even scarier," he said.
People were screaming, women crying and there was rubble everywhere
Dave Tait
The former presenter at BBC Radio Gloucestershire had been visiting the city for a few days.
Mr Tait and his wife were drinking coffee on the flat's balcony with the Johnsons - also formerly from Gloucestershire - when Monday's earthquake happened.
"Although the 'quake only lasted 13 minutes it took longer than this to get down the stairs," he said.
"People were screaming, women crying and there was rubble everywhere. The top 10 floors appeared to be worst affected, I guess because the sway up higher was greater. But, even as the tremors got less there was always the chance bigger ones could follow."
The couple said thousands of people were running in all directions trying to get away from the building.
Chinese officials fear up to 50,000 may be dead and say almost five million people have been left homeless by Monday's devastating earthquake in China's south-western Sichuan Province.
================================================================================================
Earthquake in China
Earthquake, worries jolt Chinese Americans in Atlanta
Immigrants join earthquake relief effort
By MARY LOU PICKEL, KEN SUGIURA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/18/08
Frank Zhou learned about the earthquake in his home province in China when he woke up last Monday. Within hours he was e-mailing leaders of Chinese organizations throughout Atlanta to coordinate a disaster response.
"We received the first check on Tuesday," said Zhou, head of the Chinese Business Association of Atlanta.
AP
(ENLARGE)
Details of the affected area in China
Elissa Eubanks/AJC
(ENLARGE)
From left, Kab Lee and Xiao Shengam watch the news coverage at Atlanta Chinatown Square shopping center in Chamblee.
HOW TO HELP:
This weekend and next, Atlanta's Chinese community will collect donations for victims of the Sichuan earthquake at locations throughout the metro area from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Here are a few locations, and also addresses to send checks:
Atlanta Chinatown Mall, 5383 New Peachtree Road, Chamblee, GA 30341
Super H-Mart, 2550 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth, GA 30096 (678) 543-4000
Buford Highway Farmers Market, 5600 Buford Highway N.E., Doraville (770) 455-0625
Atlanta Farmer's Market (Formerly Hong Kong Market, at Plaza Fiesta) 4166 Buford Highway NE, Atlanta, GA 30345 (404) 325-3999
Chinese Business Association of Atlanta, 2160-F Hills Ave. NW, Atlanta, GA 30318. Make check payable to CBAA (Non-profit organization), make note on check memo "For China Earthquake Relief Fund." To pay by credit card, visit Chinese Business Association website, click "Donate" on top left, follow instructions.
Atlanta Sichuan-Chongqing Association, 741 Catamount Way, Lilburn, GA 30047. Make a payment to SCearthquake Fund (To set up payment through online banking, send to Emory Alliance Credit Union, use routing number: 261172308; account number: 0000000066678)
Also, major relief agencies are collecting money for aid to victims in Myanmar and China:
Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services
800-736-3467
Mail checks to: Catholic Relief Services
P.O. Box 17090 Baltimore, MD 21203-7090
CARE
CARE website
1-800-422-7385
151 Ellis St. NE
Atlanta, GA 30303-2440
Designate Myanmar Cyclone Response Fund
Baptist Global Response
Baptist Global Response
615-367-3678
402 BNA Drive, Suite 411
Nashville, TN 37217
Earthquake in China:
Dramatic photos: Thurs. | Wed. | Tues. | Mon.
Latest story on the earthquake
Help poster (PDF)
Local groups' letter appealing for help
Lian Colburn of Alpharetta, a Chengdu native, created a website regarding the earthquake: Blog
Already some 30 Chinese groups representing professionals, alumni and associations from various provinces, have raised about $50,000 for the newly created Atlanta China Earthquake Fund Drive Committee, Zhou said.
"It is very touching. It moved me very much," he said, choking back emotion.
This weekend the Chinese relief committee planned to solicit donations at Chinatown and Asian supermarkets around the metro area. It will set up an effort at Zoo Atlanta, said zoo spokeswoman Keisha Hines Davis .
As an international city, Atlanta is accustomed to lending a hand when major disasters strike. The city is home to CARE, the Carter Center, and scores of churches and relief groups.
Communities reach out
Metro Atlanta's civic and ethnic groups organize in various ways to help victims of natural disasters, war-torn villages and poverty-stricken hometowns.
The city's immigrant enclaves stretch from Buford Highway, home to large populations from Mexico and Central America, to Clarkston, where refugees from sub-Saharan Africa have settled. Duluth is the area's new Little Korea. Even Zoo Atlanta has an international link. Prized pandas, Lun-Lun and Yang-Yang hail from the Sichuan Province where the 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck.
Atlanta's Chinese community, estimated at 100,000, makes good use of mass e-mails to keep abreast of developments in such disasters as Monday's quake. The many educated professionals — engineers, computer programmers and students — surf Mandarin-language chat rooms and post blogs.
Friends flooded Lian Colburn of Alpharetta with calls and e-mails asking about her family in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province.
"It's just devastating. It's unbelievable. It's beyond words," she said.
The former IT architect manager for UPS created a Web site to respond.
In her blog, Colburn describes how her sister's car started jumping when the earthquake hit. She pulled over, checked the tires and turned off the engine. "The car was still jumping!!!" Colburn wrote. "That's when her sister heard people yelling, "Earthquake!"
At the Atlanta Chinatown Mall, Victoria Xue sat in the food court with family and friends watching a wide-screen TV with satellite news from China.
"We just watch TV everyday," said Xue, who is from Beijing, in northern China, far from the epicenter.
While Chinese have banded together through cyberspace to raise money here, other immigrant groups use other means to organize.
The estimated 100,000 Korean-Americans in metro Atlanta count on multiple news sources for community-related fund-raising. Two radio stations, including the 50,000-watt Atlanta Radio Korea, and four daily newspapers reach a majority of the community, said Jay Eun, president of the Korean American Association of Greater Atlanta.
Two years ago, after flooding caused dozens of deaths and left thousands homeless across the Korean peninsula, Eun's group sought the help of radio stations and newspapers to spread the word about fundraising efforts.
Atlanta's Filipino community, which Filipino-American Association of Greater Atlanta president Willy Blanco estimated to be greater than 35,000, relies heavily on e-mail lists the association has compiled.
They used the e-mail lists to raise money for victims of the 2004 tsunami that devastated Thailand.
The Lost Boys of Sudan, a group of orphans who fled civil war in their homeland almost 20 years ago, tend to organize along tribal lines. A group at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Stone Mountain hails from the Rumbek region of Sudan. They are raising money to build a children's center in their home village. Another group is raising money for water wells for their Panaruu community.
That model of relief is partly because Sudan is so war torn and villages so isolated, that very focused efforts make the most sense, said Gini Eagan, pastoral associate at Corpus Christi.
Mexican immigrants have organized 14 hometown associations in which residents from the same rancho send money back for projects such as schools and clinics. The Mexican community in Atlanta, estimated as high as 500,000, tends to rally to appeals from Spanish-language radio stations, said Armando Bello, spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta.
Relief agency efforts
Institutional relief agencies are already on the ground to help. At the time of the cyclone, CARE, the Atlanta-based international humanitarian agency, had 500 staffers in Myanmar involved in water, sanitation, food security and HIV/AIDS projects. Since the disaster, "it's almost all hands on deck to respond," said Lurma Rackley, CARE spokeswoman.
Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist relief organization, has a team of volunteers in Thailand waiting to go into Myanmar and plans to send a group to China.
While the American Jewish Committee has not sent relief workers to China, the group's international aid arm has sent a small group to Myanmar to help identify remains of cyclone victims, said Judy Marx, executive director of the Atlanta chapter of AJC.
"Israelis, sadly, are experts at DNA investigations and forensics investigations," Marx said.
Catholic Relief Services' international arm is working with local partners in Myanmar to help about 40,000 people with food, water, shelter and medical care, said Cullen Larson, Atlanta southeast region program officer of CRS, which operates in about 100 countries.
"We have immediate insight into situations, and the ability to respond because people are there."
Catholic Relief Services raised $195 million in aid for the 2004 tsunami, Larson said. The Chinese government hasn't asked the agency for earthquake help, he said.
Cang Li, of the Atlanta Sichuan-Chongqing Association, says the new Atlanta relief group plans Monday to wire proceeds from fund raising to the Chinese Red Cross.
"We want to do this as quickly as possible because right now the people really need help."
In Alpharetta, Colburn wants to organize a fund raiser at Lake Windward Elementary, where her second-grader attends. "It doesn't matter how much money, it's just the thought that counts from the child's point of view," she said.
Colburn's parents, live with her, but had gone home to China in April for a visit. She has been in contact with them and they are safe.
Her kids ask for frequent earthquake updates, she said.
Everyday they come home and ask, "Were you able to talk to grandma?"
Staff writer George Chidi contributed to this article.
Vote for this story!
Buzz up!More on ajc.com
Someone is harassing broadcaster Neal Boortz
Atlanta singers make it last
Sons' sins shadow Sailor's serenity
The sins of his sons
Tumult revisits Rev. Ron Sailor's quiet life
PEACH BUZZ: Poor Paula: Another bad night on 'AI'
Korean immigrant-investor ventures out to West End
Atlanta radio revenue declines
Atlanta radio market sees revenues drop 3% in '07
PEACH BUZZ: Guns, goulash among Deen boys' favorites
Expand this list
More StoriesRelated Subjects
Atlanta
China
Myanmar
Catholic Relief Services
Lian Colburn
Global Response
Sudan
Sichuan Province
Expand this list
More Related Subjects
