Lifesaving top priority, premier says
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E-mail China Daily, July 12, 2013
"None of my family members had cash when we escaped from our home. But the government provided us with three free meals, and we have quilts donated by the army for the night," she said.
A total of 232 tourists and villagers from Sanxi arrived at the school, which is 8 km from the landslide site, on Thursday.
Hong Tongjin, who witnessed the landslide, said: "It took more than four hours to reach the school from Sanxi. Despite a bus being provided by the local government, sometimes we had to walk in water up to our knees.
"The landslide buried the eight rural resorts within several minutes. I was more scared than in the Wenchuan earthquake (which hit Sichuan in 2008, killing nearly 70,000 people and leaving 17,923 missing). My house shook in the Wenchuan quake, but I saw many people die in the landslide," he said.
Some relatives of the dead became emotional.
One woman at the school hit a man after he asked about her family members.
"Her relatives all perished in the landslide," said Li Kai, a 32-year-old surgeon from Dujiangyan City Orthopedic Specialist Hospital, who is at the school.
Together with 16 medics from four other hospitals in Dujiangyan, Li took it in turns to treat people at the school. They offered help on Wednesday and Thursday to 85 with minor ailments such as colds, diarrhea and bruising.
Dong Lin, an official from the Dujiangyan bureau of public health, said, "From time to time, people whose relatives died in the landslide became hysterical. Four specialists from a mental disease hospital in Dujiangyan are on duty at the school.
"A 35-year-old mother, who believes her 4-year-old daughter died because their home in Sanxi was destroyed, wept all day, saying repeatedly she wanted to die with her daughter. After lengthy psychological intervention by all four specialists from the mental disease hospital, she calmed down."
To prevent epidemics, medics sprayed disinfectant in toilets, classrooms and dormitories at the school and in the town's streets three times a day on Wednesday and Thursday.
"They have sprayed disinfectant in an area of more than 2,000 square meters," Dong said.
Eighteen people have been confirmed dead and 107 missing.
The rainstorm began lashing Dujiangyan at 8 pm on Monday.
"Over 38 hours, the city saw accumulated rainfall of 920 millimeters, nearly three quarters its annual amount," said Hu Defeng, deputy chief of the city's weather bureau.
It is believed to be the severest rainstorm to hit the city since meteorological records began in 1954.
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