Nearly 10,000 reported killed by China quake

CHENGDU, China (CNN) -- Rainy weather and poor logistics thwarted efforts by relief troops who walked for hours over rock, debris and mud on Tuesday in hopes of reaching the worst-hit area of an earthquake that killed nearly 10,000 in central China, state-run media reported.
Setting out from Maerkang in Sichuan Province at 8 p.m. Monday, the 100 or so troops had to travel 200 kilometers (124 miles) to go before reaching Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake, also in the province, Xinhua reported. After seven hours, they still had 70 kilometers (43 miles) to go.
"I have seen many collapsed civilian houses, and the rocks dropped from mountains on the roadside are everywhere," the head of the unit, Li Zaiyuan, told Xinhua.
Added CNN Correspondent John Vause: "The roads here are terrible in the best of times ... right now they're down right atrocious. They've resorted to going in one man at a time on foot."
Nearly all the confirmed deaths were in Sichuan Province, but rescuers were hindered because roads linking it to the provincial capital, Chengdu, were damaged, Xinhua reported.
Local radio quoted disaster relief officials as saying a third of the buildings in Wenchuan collapsed from the quake and another third were seriously damaged.
The earthquake was powerful enough to be felt throughout most of China. Many children were buried under the rubble of their schools.
The Chinese government said the death toll was sure to rise.
An expert told CNN the 7.9-magnitude quake at about 2:28 p.m. Monday (6:28 a.m. GMT) was the largest the region has seen "for over a generation."
Residents as far as Chongqing -- about 200 miles from the epicenter in Sichuan Province -- spent the night outdoors, too afraid of aftershocks to sleep indoors.
Local radio in Sichuan quoted disaster relief officials as saying a third of the buildings in Wenchuan collapsed from the quake and another third were seriously damaged.
The state-run Zhongxin news agency reported that a survivor who escaped Beichuan county in Sichuan Province described the province as having been "razed to the ground."
The Red Cross Society of China, coordinating some of the international aid efforts, encouraged financial donations because of the difficulty of getting supplies to those most in need.
At least six schools collapsed to some extent in the quake or aftershocks that followed, Xinhua reported.
At one school, almost 900 students -- all eighth-graders and ninth-graders, according to a local villager -- were believed to be buried.
At least 50 bodies were pulled from the rubble by Monday night at Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province, Xinhua reported.
"Some buried teenagers were struggling to free themselves from the ruins while others were calling for help. Eight excavators were working at the site. Devastated parents watched as five cranes worked at the site and an ambulance waited," Xinhua reported.
"A tearful mother said her son, ninth-grader Zhang Chengwei, was buried in the ruins."
Meanwhile, 2,300 people were buried in two collapsed chemical plants in Sichuan's Shifang city, and 80 tons of ammonia leaked out, Xinhua reported. Six hundred people died there. The plants were among a series of buildings that collapsed, including private homes, schools and factories.
The local government has evacuated 6,000 civilians from the area and was dispatching firefighters to help at the scene, Xinhua reported.
Much of the nation's transportation system shut down. Xinhua reported there were "multiple landslides and collapses along railway lines" near Chengdu.
Sichuan Province sits in the Sichuan basin and is surrounded by the Himalayas to the west. The Yangtze River flows through the province and the Three Gorges Dam in the nearby Hubei Province controls flooding to the Sichuan -- though there were no reports of damage to the world's largest dam.
Monday's quake was caused by the Tibetan plateau colliding with the Sichuan basin, Zhigang Peng, an earthquake expert at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, told CNN.
"Earthquakes in this part of China are infrequent but not uncommon," he said.
The last major earthquake in the region occurred in the northwestern margin of the Sichuan basin when a 7.5-magnitude quake killed more than 9,300 people on August 25, 1933.
President Hu Jintao ordered an all-out effort to help those affected, and Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to the region to direct the rescue work, Xinhua reported.
"My fellow Chinese, facing such a severe disaster, we need calm, confidence, courage and efficient organization," Wen was quoted as saying.
"I believe we can certainly overcome the disaster with the public and the military working together under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the government."
Peter Sammonds, professor of geophysics at University College London, called the earthquake "tremendous."
"Particularly in the more remote, the more mountainous part where this has taken place, a lot of the buildings are built on sediments that are quite unstable. They're probably liquifying, causing the buildings to collapse. You might expect landslides to occur, which could actually stop the relief efforts going through on the roads, so this could be very grim in the remoter, more mountainous parts of this province."
While many of the most immediate efforts were focused on Sichuan Province, Xinhua also reported dead and injured in Gansu, Chongqing and Yunnan provinces.
A provincial government spokesman said they feared more dead and injured in collapsed houses in Dujiangyan City in Wenchuan County.
A driver for the seismological bureau said he saw "rows of houses collapsed" in Dujiangyan, Xinhua reported.
Bonnie Thie, the country director of the Peace Corps, told CNN she was on a university campus in Chengdu about 60 miles from the epicenter, in the eastern part of China's Sichuan province, when the first quake hit.
"You could see the ground shaking," Thie told CNN.
The shaking "went on for what seemed like a very long time," she said.
Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said this quake could cause major damage because of its strength and proximity to major population centers. Also, it was relatively shallow, and those kinds of quakes tend to do more damage near the epicenter than deeper ones, Presgrave said.
An earthquake with 7.5 magnitude in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan killed 255,000 people in 1976 -- the greatest death toll from an earthquake in the last four centuries and the second greatest in recorded history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tangshan is roughly 995 miles (1,600 km) from Chengdu, the nearest major city to the epicenter of Monday's quake.
After the quake struck Monday, the ground shook as far away as Beijing, which is 950 miles (1,528 km) from the epicenter. Residents of the Chinese capital, which hosts this year's Olympic Games in August, felt a quiet, rolling sensation for about a minute.
Thousands of people were evacuated from Beijing buildings immediately after the earthquake.
At least seven more earthquakes -- measuring between 4.0 and 6.0 magnitudes -- happened nearby over the four hours after the initial quake at at 2:28 p.m. local time, the USGS reported.
A spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Committee said no Olympic venues were affected. The huge Three Gorges Dam -- roughly 400 miles east of the epicenter -- was not damaged, a spokesman said.
The earthquake was also felt in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, and as far away as Hanoi, Vietnam, and Bangkok, Thailand, according to the Hong Kong-based Mandarin-language channel Phoenix TV.
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/12/china.quake/index.htm

Vocabulary Week 16

The thing that makes this picture amorous is the sexual nature of the scene. Being loving is not necessarily the same as being amorous. Although this picture looks a bit 'tender', the man and woman are not wearing clothes.

Aromas, smells and fragrances, come from a lot of things, but most often from flowers and food. I always find beef stew to be very aromatic, and this picture really reminds me of the smell of my mom's best beef stew!
There is obviously something wrong with this water. Water should be clear! The deleterious nature of water pollution and contamination is by now well known. Not only is this water dirty, but it is red, reminding me of blood and the 'death' it is causing to our planet and wildlife.
Honestly, bazaar paintings like this tend to creep me out. They make me wonder "What was going on in the artist's mind when he or she painted this?" This one looks like it could be a distorted landscape, painted by someone in delirium whose perception was twisted.
I know that ecstasy as an adjective describes a state of being, but the word, for me, is invariably linked to the drug and the harm that drug causes. I chose this picture because it reflects that understanding of the word by showing the brain damage done by using ecstasy.
I find this picture a bit comical. I chose it for enamored because the woman is essentially ignoring the man, who seems to care about nothing but her. Unlike adoring, enamored has a foolish, or unrealistic quality to it.
He's never going to get out of the gym that way! It is obviously quite a futile attempt, since the exorcise bike will never move.
This creepy scene shows witches chanting an incantation, a selection of words supposed to have power. In this case, they are brewing a potion. Scenes like this always remind me of the famous incantation "Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" from Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

1. acquiesce-v.-- to submit or comply silently or without protest; consent.

2. amorous-adj.-- showing or expressing love, esp. sexual love.

3. aroma-n.-- an odor arising from spices, plants, cooking, etc., esp. an agreeable odor; fragrance.

4. awkward-adj.-- lacking grace, or ease in movement; hard to deal with; difficult.

5. consummate-v.-- to bring to a state of perfection; fulfill; complete.

6. conversely-adv.-- with the terms of the relation reversed.

7. deleterious-adj.-- harmful, injurious.

8. delirium-n.-- a state of violent mental agitation.

9. ecstasy-n.-- a state of elated bliss.

10. enamored-adj.-- marked by a foolish or unreasoning fondness.

11. futile-adj.-- incapable of producing any result; ineffective.

12. incantation-n.-- a chanting or uttering of words puporting to have magical power.

13. inevitability-n.-- the quality of being unavoidable.

14. infatuation-n.-- a foolish and usually extravagant passion, love or admiration.

Non-Profit

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Missions Statement: To raise awareness about the educational ciris happening in Mexico by encouraging people to help organizations that support uneducated youth in impoverished communities to have a brighter future.

The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming (honors book report)

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming. Roaring Brookes Press. New Milford, Connecticut: 2005.

I found The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming on my book shelf and realized that I hadn't read it yet, even though it was a 16th birthday present. It is a fantasy story set in modern day India, though most of the events take place in magical settings that most people cannot enter.

Firstly, this is a sequel to The Conch Bearer, which I have not read. However, the important events that occurred in that book are explained in the sequel. That in mind, the book starts with the boy Anand, the main character, starting his training and classes at the Silver Valley, the magical place in India where children with magical talents are taught by Masters and Healer. Anand found out in the previous book that he was the conch bearer, a very special job, for the conch is a very powerful magical object.

As Anand begins his classes, he finds that he is unable to do the tasks given to the students. On a couple of occasions, however, he sees and hears things way beyond his level and he ends up bringing to the attention of the Masters the plea for help from a village healer miles away. Anand's friend from The Conch Bearer, Master Abhaydatta is sent to help the village, but Anand is not allowed to go. When Anand sees a vision of Abhaydatta in danger, he does not bother with telling the Masters, but goes straight to his young friend Nisha, a girl who joined his adventures in the previous book. He persuades her to go with him and together they steal the conch away from its guarded stand. The conch attempts to transport them to the village, but Anand lets go of Nisha and the conch in the process. When he lands, Anand is alone.

In the village, Anand finds out that a stranger, Kasim, has come to the village and is enlisting the help of the village men to find an elusive treasure in the forest. Although the men do get paid, they all come back insane. Each time Kasim returns with the latest workers, he chooses a new group, and Anand manages to slip in. He discovers that underneath the ruined palace that is the digging site, Kasim has been feeding the souls of the men to a jinn, an extremely powerful and evil spirit. Anand also finds the object that Kasim was looking for, a mirror into the past, hundreds of years into the past, when the palace was still in use. When Anand steps through the mirror, he discovers that Abhaydatta, Nisha and the conch are there as well, though Nisha has taken on the persona of the niece of the Nazib's advisor. (The Nazib is essentially a king.) The problem is that the jinn, with Kasim's help, is attempting to enter that world too and take over the land, and on top of that, all of their powers, including the conch's, are much less effective than in their own world.

With an exciting search for the conch, which is hidden, and making a new friend, Anand with Abhaydatta's and Nisha's help finds himself the only one who can defy the jinn, with the conch in his hand, of course. They all survive in the end, and Anand, Abhaydatta, Nisha and the conch all return to modern day India. There, Anand is highly honored for his courage, and he finally is able to continue his lessons.

The conch is an interesting character in the story. It is a shell, of course, but it possesses many powers. For one thing, it is an object of power, and therefore it tends to attract people to it. Anand, as its bearer, is particularly tied to it. Also because he is its bearer, the conch speaks to Anand in his mind. It is vertually all knowing, though it doesn't regard any knowledge unless it is relevent at the moment. It also cannot give humans the answers because they have to have a chance to grow. It may only help if there is no other way. Although the conch is not present for most of Anand's adventures in The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming, it plays a very important roll in the climax by disolving the jinn into oblivion.

I really enjoyed this book. It was the first book I've read in a while that I wanted to be reading in class and everywhere that I got a chance. Again, I wish I had read The Conch Bearer first, but maybe I'll read it in the future. I would recommend that people read the first book first, but this one was very good! It is essentially a fantasy book about helping others with the gifts that you are given.

I think it would be extremely exciting to travel back in time hundreds of years to a kingdom in India! I would probably be mostly like Nisha, who is straight forward, clear and sometimes demanding. I actually think the book ends well, and leaves room for a third book.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning, Indian-American author and poet who has written a wide selection of books, most of them either fiction or poetry. She has been published in over 50 magazines, and her writing has been included in over 50 anthologies. Her books have been translated into 16 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Russian and Japanese, and two of them have been made into movies. I am very glad I read The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming because it sparked my interest in fantasy again!

Delta, Northwest Agree to Merger

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines last night announced a proposed merger that would create the world's largest carrier and possibly spur an industry-wide round of restructuring that could vastly change air travel for millions of Americans.
The proposal, which was months in the making, would create a global airline with seven domestic hubs and international destinations stretching from Asia to South America to Europe. It comes as new international agreements have reduced barriers to competition, fuel prices have skyrocketed and the economy has weakened. In the past month, four discount airlines have sought bankruptcy protection.
The merger of the two carriers is far from a certainty, however. It would need to pass regulatory muster, and Northwest has yet to reach an agreement with its pilots, an employee group that could complicate integrating the airlines. Concerns about industry consolidation have been raised on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have expressed extreme frustration in recent weeks at declining airline customer service, increasing flight delays and questions over the industry's maintenance practices.
Many analysts said the deal could spark a round of mergers between other U.S. carriers so they could more effectively compete with the combined Delta-Northwest, which would keep Delta's name and its Atlanta headquarters. The next possible combination, according to many inside the industry and those who observe it closely: United and Continental airlines, which would then leapfrog the new Delta as the world's largest carrier. The two airlines have talked about merging in the past.
The proposed Delta-Northwest merger would not affect the carriers' frequent fliers, who are already members of the same international Sky Team alliance. It does not appear that Washington area travelers would notice much of a change, either. The combined airline and its regional carriers would handle about 13 percent of departures from the region's three major airports, according to an analysis of flight schedules conducted for The Washington Post by OAGback Analytical Solutions.
Delta's top executive, Richard Anderson, who would retain his post in the new airline, said in a statement released last night that the deal was a good one because it would lead to an "airline that is financially secure, able to invest in our employees and our customers and built to thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace." Northwest's chief executive, Doug Steenland, would step aside but would gain a seat on the new carrier's board.
In the proposed carrier's first news release, executives pledged to retain all of their hubs and not reduce jobs through layoffs -- a tough promise to keep in today's environment and one that comes just a few weeks after Delta announced that it was seeking to reduce about 2,000 jobs from its 50,000-person workforce.
The deal is an all-stock transaction in which Northwest shareholders would receive 1.25 Delta shares for each Northwest share. The statement said the transactions give Northwest shareholders a 16.8 percent premium, based on yesterday's closing stock prices. Delta shares closed yesterday at $10.48 and Northwest at $11.22.
Delta, the nation's third-largest carrier by traffic, and Northwest, the fifth-largest, could potentially carry more than 175 million passengers a year, according to federal data. Executives said they expect a combined company to generate more than $35 billion in annual revenue. They also said they expect the merger to cut some costs.
Despite their enthusiasm, executives face hurdles before they can finalize any deal.
Although President Bush's top transportation official has said she supports airline consolidation, the Justice Department is expected to take a critical look at the deal for potential antitrust problems. Top Democrats have promised hearings on what mergers would mean to communities and passengers.
The airline will also have to dance delicately around labor issues.
Delta took a major step in reducing that friction last night by reaching an agreement with the union leaders of its 6,000 pilots, an action expected to ease transition issues. Northwest has not reached such a deal with its 4,500 pilots. Two months ago, executives from both carriers worked hard to win over their pilots to ease transition and reduce the chances for labor rifts -- problems that have complicated similar deals. However, after Delta and Northwest pilots could not reach a consensus on seniority lists and other matters, the merger plan dissolved.
Analysts say the economic environment for airlines has deteriorated since then, so much so that the carriers are willing to go ahead without the Northwest pilots on board. They said in the news statement that they would attempt to deal with integration issues in coming months.
It is not known how a completed merger and other proposed transactions would affect customers. Analysts generally agree that fares would increase, especially in markets not served by low-cost carriers. However, with the U.S. airline industry in such rough shape, passengers might be better off if carriers consolidate into three or four larger and stronger entities, the analysts said.
"The industry could quickly go from six major network carriers to as few as three," said Robert Mann, an airline analyst in New York. "We have an industry that is slowly but surely going out of business. That is an unfortunate fact. We need an industry that functions and actually makes money and can reinvest in more efficient fleets."
But others said industry-wide consolidation is not a foregone conclusion. Northwest and Delta are already part of the same international alliance and are essentially marketing partners already. After studying the deal, other carriers might realize that the combined carrier is not so different from the two airlines' current operations, the analysts said.
"This won't be some juggernaut," said Mike Boyd, an aviation analyst and consultant. "They are essentially together already. . . . It is a merger that is not going to be some sort steamroller over the rest of the industry."

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402596.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Vocabulary Week 13

Just looking at this picture gives me a sensation of vertigo!
James felt a dizzying sensation of vertigo as he rose to his feet and he closed his eyes.

The supreme court is probably the most punitive group in the US.

"She must be the most punitive teach ever! I've never had a detention before!"

I love how the two men in the cartoon look like crooks! It reminds me other the way that lots of people are constantly trying to get money, as opposed to squandering it.

There should have been a large sign saying "Squander." The room was full of luxurious furniture, paintings in golden frames and plates of food on every surface.

Poor old man! He looks so forlorn and depressed.

Nora looked forlorn after she read the note. "We're never going to make it in time!"

The news reporter is attempting to avoid libelling, so as not to make anyone upset. It is funny, because that is unrealistic.

Both candidates managed to libel the groups of concern, who proceded to be outraged.

revere-v.-- to regard with respect tinged with awe.
vertigo-n.-- a dizzying sensation of tilting within stable surroundings or of being in tilting or spinning surroundings.
punitive-adj.-- serving for, concerned with, or inflicting punishment.
slander-n.-- words falsely spoken that damage the name of another.
squander-v.-- to spend or use (money, time, etc.) extravagantly or wastefully.
panache-n.-- a grand or flamboyant manner.
forlorn-adj.-- desolate or dreary; unhappy or miserable as in feeling, condition or appearance.
quell-v.-- to supress, put an end to, extinguish.
concision-n.-- concise quality; brevity; terseness.
libel-v.-- to misrepresent damagingly.
defamation-n.-- false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another; a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions.
misdirection-n.-- a wrong or incorrect direction, guidance, or instruction; (Law) an error made by a juge in charging the jury.

Current Event 8

Whistle-Blowers: Ties Between FAA, Southwest Too Close

Federal aviation safety inspectors testified before Congress today that lax oversight by their bosses and other regulators allowed Southwest Airlines last year to fly thousands of passengers on potentially unsafe jets in need of key safety checks.
The inspectors, who sought protection as whistle-blowers from Congress and federal investigators, said managers did little to correct problems with how Southwest and their own colleagues were handling the carrier's safety lapses.
"I am here today because I am concerned for the safety of the flying public," said Charalambe Boutris, an inspector who is credited with exposing the problems.
Boutris and the other inspectors testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has been investigating Southwest's maintenance practices and allegations of weak FAA oversight of the carrier and potentially others. Since the investigation became public last month, four major airlines have been forced to ground hundreds of planes to conduct needed safety checks or make repairs to comply with safety directives.
Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the committee, said the issues raised by the inspectors represented the "most egregious lapse of safety I have seen in the last 23 years."
"The FAA would have us believe that what took place was an isolated incident," he said. "But the testimony we have heard substantiates that this is not an isolated aberration attributable to a rogue individual. But rather, this was a systematic breakdown of the safety oversight role of the FAA."
Federal Aviation Administration officials have said the Southwest problems were isolated. They have said a recent audit revealed that airlines were complying with 99 percent of safety directions. Four carriers are under investigation for not complying with directives, the FAA has said.
Southwest officials have apologized for any potential safety lapses, but said that even though the airline was late in making inspections of planes, the public was never endangered.
The safety lapses are coming to light during the safest stretch in U.S. commercial aviation history. And even the sharpest critics of the FAA's oversight, including Oberstar, have said that air travelers should not be afraid to get on passenger planes.
During today's hearing, the inspectors said many of the problems stemmed from a close relationship that had developed between a supervisor in their Dallas office, Douglas Gawadzinski, and a former FAA employee who had taken a job at Southwest. They believed that Gawadzinski was too lenient on the carrier because of that relationship.
The inspectors said Gawadzinski allowed Southwest to continue flying planes in March 2007 even after inspectors and airline personnel discovered that jets were well-beyond deadlines to complete checks for cracks in their skins.
Such checks were enacted after a large chunk of fuselage ripped away from a Boeing 737 in 1988. Undiscovered cracks on the Southwest planes "could have resulted in a sudden fracture . . . which would have had a catastrophic impact during flight," Boutris said.
The next month, the airline kept flying planes in need of critical rudder inspections even after it alerted the FAA to lapsed checks.
When the inspectors approached supervisors about the problems, they said they encountered roadblocks. Gawadzinski underplayed the potential safety dangers, and they received no help from high-ranking officials despite repeated attempts to air their concerns. Three were removed, at least temporarily, from their posts, and Boutris received a death threat that congressional staffers said was being investigated by the FBI. "No supervisor can do what my supervisor was doing without the support from fellow inspectors . . . and I believe with the support of people in Washington," Boutris testified.
Inspector Douglas E. Peters said his experiences proved that there "was evidence that FAA management personnel with the responsibility and the authority to take appropriate action proved themselves unworthy of being custodians of the public trust."
"The proof was provided by their blatant disregard and failure to respond to significant safety events that were constantly reported, Peters testified.
They also raised concerns about the broader issue of the FAA's partnership with carriers and its reliance on them to disclose safety problems. Such disclosures often do not result in punishment if the airlines are upfront about the issues.
The programs generally have been credited with encouraging carriers, pilots, maintenance crews and others to report mistakes and quickly correct them. However, many outside safety experts, members of Congress and federal investigators believe the FAA should tougher on the carriers.
In prepared testimony, the Department of Transportation's Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III said the FAA developed "an overly collaborative relationship with" Southwest, which helped lead to last year's lapses.
Scovel added that he believes the FAA "relies too heavily on self-disclosures and promotes a pattern of excessive leniency at the expense of effective oversight and appropriate enforcement."
Last month -- a year after the original problems at Southwest -- the FAA fined the carrier $10.2 million for the missed safety checks and for continuing to fly the planes even after the airline learned that it had missed the inspections.