Sichuan Earthquake Donation: More Info

Six digits? Jesus, say it aint so...

'possibly approaching 100,000'

I have the same bad feeling.

http://bbs2.creaders.net/poem/messages/107403.html

天崩地陷，
落尽美丽的尘缘
断壁残垣，
把如花的岁月击穿

血染的衣衫，
灼热了我的双眼
珠泪连连
是无法剪开的挂牵

厄难，殃及城区乡间
悸痛，由心头传到指尖
手足折损的概念
刹那释诠
故国乡梓的眷恋
此刻弥坚

一份薄捐
我其实离你并不遥远
尽管隔着万水千山
几行浅言
我真的就在你身边
同趟那河，同翻那山
同跨越一个又一个的沟沟坎坎

风急浪卷，打不沉齐心合力的航船
内忧外患，压不垮众志成城的家园
这是信，是真，是呼唤
是诚挚与理解的开端，是扶持并关爱的源泉

今宵难眠
为罹难者点一注青烟
今宵难眠
为幸存者祝祷康健
今宵难眠
为失踪者求告明天的明天的明天。。。。。。

今宵难眠

水墨安静黯然书于2008-05-12 震难之夜

天降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤.

亲爱的祖国，挺住!!!

Pardon my shoddy translation....

"Heaven collapses and the ground caves in,
Totally destroying the beautiful earth.
Broken walls, shattered ramparts,
Have pierced through the flower-like years of people's lives.

Clothes stained by blood,
Have heated up my two eyes,
Pearls of tears fall down non-stop.
A line that cannot be cut apart.

The calamity, the disaster amidst the districts and villages.
Fear and sorrow, pass through the entire body, from the mind to the fingertips,
A sensation of agony in every limb.

In the blink of an eye,
My yearning for my ancestral homeland and village,
Becomes overwhelming, overflowing.

A small solace,
Is that I'm actually not too distant from you.
Even if we are separated by thousands of crags and rapids,
With but a few words,
I can arrive by your side,
Fording the river with you,
Crossing the mountains with you,
And stepping through one ditch and gutter after another, by your side.

Though the wind rushes and the waves coil up,
They cannot sink this ship of our intertwined hearts.
Internal turmoil, foreign aggression; neither can collapse the united, impregnable will of our people and homeland.
This is true; this is genuine; this is the sound of our calling out to you.
This is birth of sincerity and understanding,
This is the fountainhead of love and assistance.

It will be hard to sleep tonight.
Light a candle in prayer for the dead.
It will be hard to sleep tonight.
Pray for the health of those who survived.
It will be hard to sleep tonight.
Pray that those who are missing will be there by the morrow of the morrow of the morrow.

It will be hard to sleep tonight.

In memory of the 2008-05-12 earthquake."

Damn....Xinhua reports that only 2300 people in Yinxiu town of Wenchuan survived, and 1000 of them are badly injured. There were over 10000 people in Yinxiu...the body count just upped by roughly ~8000, if this report is true. I don't even want to go to bed...don't want to know what the numbers are going to be looking like tomorrow.

@Zhangsan
Impressive and apparently without the help of babyfish translation or the kind which tend to produce those ridiculous signs (http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200805a.brief.htm#031)

Sorry just trying to cheer people up a little. Although my compliment was sincere. Helluva job!

I really hope we don't go beyond 20,000 - which is still 20,000 too many....

I encourage you guys to get your friends to donate to help this disaster. All those who survived will need food and shelter meanwhile, and they will need help to get back on their feet to normal life again in the longer term.

I have traveled to JiuZhaiGou by car from Chengdu and know how tough it is to get around that region, especially through the mountains.

In a way, I kinda hope that those living in remote areas, they now relocate to Chengdu or the bigger cities. There is no point rebuilding their destroyed villages. This will speed up urbanization.

"possibly approaching 100,000." I do not think so if there's no other earthquake again.

Fortunately, Wenchuan, which is the center of the earthquake, was not destroyed very much.

You could find the photo at this link:

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/p/2008-05-14/140315537492.shtml

start donating...

From Asiaing.com:

USD Account: 7112111482600000209

Account NO.: 7112111482600000209
Account Name: China Red Cross
Swift Code：CIBKCNBJ100
Bank Name: China CITIC Bank Beijing
Jiuxianqiao Sub-Branch
Address: C&W Tower. No.14, Jiuxianqiao Street, Chaoyang District，Beijing, China
Zip Code: 100016

TEL:86-10-64319780

RMB Account:

Account No.: 0200001009014413252
Account Name: China Red Cross
Swift Code: ICBKCNBJBJM
Bank Name: ICBC Beijing Municipal Branch
Dong Si Nan Sub-Branch
Address: No.147 Dongsi South St, Beijing, China
Zip Code: 100010

You can visit Red Cross China ( http://redcross.org.cn/ ) for more information.

I'm sorry that maybe you're right.

I'm sorry for the death.

I recommend 'Tzu Chi Foundation (慈济)' which is a Buddahist NGO based in Taiwan. They always go to the frontline first with no other
concern but disaster relief. They are currently in Burma too.

http://www.tzuchi.org/global/help/index.html
or call 1-888-989-8244

Or, if you prefer sending the check, the payable title is “Tzu Chi
Foundation” with the following address:
1100 S. Valley Center Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773-3728

i am very disappointed and shocked that the U.S. donated only $500,000 to China, i mean sure China has industrialized and become a "world power" in global economy/ they have money, but really 500,000 is just a ridiculous sum to donated, Russia for one donated $5,000,000 and we all know that in ways the U.S. is better off than Russia, but still they're willing to give, sure some donation is better off than no donation but ha 500,000 is still a very small sum, i mean the house i live in is a little over 700,000, so i'm wondering when did the U.S. become so frugal?

i stand corrected by "the U.S.", i'm regarding pres. Bush

@nekomimi

"Donation" per se is upon free will. Please satay away from finger-pointing who's not doing enough on donation, etc. IMHO don't start bringing politics to disaster.
BTW what China need now is not money but medical/drinking water/other post trauma suvival supplies.

nekomimi,

[black humor] The reason the US loaned so little was because China already has most of their money, via loans and purchases of US treasury bonds [/black humor].

If some politicians in some countries are stingy in internation aid to those who need real help, they should also stop labelling themselves as "hunman rights" protectors as some did a few weeks ago in Olympic torch relay. How ironic!!!

Donations from US government: US$0.5m
from France government: 0.25Euro
from Saudi Arab: US$50m

But we still thank the aid anyway.

Another thing reminds me is the execuse for the US government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq is " to save people there", is that interesting?

Correction on french donation Euro 0.25m

Let`s not to be a criticism, let`s do something practical for the innocent people who lost their lives, families, homes in this tragedy. All it takes just a luck to hit by some incident, so any of us shall cherish life and be a decent human being. Try to help at what you can and you will feel better from today as one day other people will do the same for you.

We all saw`the day after tomorrow`, the planet we living now is hidden many nature disaster which beyond our knowledge and prediction. Let`s show our love and respect to each other, to families, friends, and to other countries`s good people, behavior a decent person from ourself first.

Thank you for anyone donate and or anyway expressed your love and care to the Chinese people who suffered in this earthquake! We share the same value of life!

The US is ungratful and cold-blooded.

Relief materials for the victims of Hurricane Katrina from the Chinese government were airfreighted before China donated $5 million and Beijing said the government was prepared to send rescue workers including medical experts if needed.

The US is nothing but an evil hygemonist in the coat of human rightist.

Donation is donation. It's not a tax. People will give whatever they feel comfortable and give with their own course. Also, don't expect payback for donation. Otherwise, it's not donation.

Well, the best thing now I believe is to donate cash. China is possibly the manufacturer of most equipments and daily goods people will need. It will be a waste of money if you buy stuff in US and send them to China. People can buy may be 10 times more things in China with the same amount of money. BTW, buying local will help relieve the global warming, and quite possibly will prevent another disaster. Our mother nature is so weak now.

Here is a list of possible venues of donation. Most will send money directly to the victims. Make sure to donate to those with no or minimal overhead. http://www.chinesesession.com/html/donation.html

Another place to look at is http://www.2008earthquake.org/. You can find more reason to donate to this devastating earthquake.

As the poster above noted, one very reliable and effective way to get aid to Sichuan is through the Tzu Chi Foundation 慈济基金会, an international humanitarian NGO. 100% of your donations go to help the victims. (The organization's administrative costs are covered by other funds, not by donations.)

Tzu Chi volunteers are on the ground in Sichuan distributing aid, including blankets, food and medicine. They're also one of the few groups the Chinese government has authorized to bring in aid workers from overseas to assist with earthquake disaster relief.

Donate online with Google Checkout: http://northerncal.us.tzuchi.org

More info: http://www.us.tzuchi.org

The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation is the largest humanitarian organization in the Chinese-speaking world (it was founded in Taiwan in 1966), with chapters in over 40 countries. They've had relief operations in China since 1991.

1. We were expecting to see Chinese President Wen seating on a crisis management headquarters to manage the crisis and via crisis management team to inform the media not by a bunch of inexperienced TV reporters’ pointless reports.
2. The manpower who arranges any high ranking officers to Sichuang can be put in useful positions.
3. What China really needs is an experienced crisis management team from either 89 SFO quake or Taiwan 921.
4. Watch where your donation money goes to.

I want to share some updates on the US Government Donations. While I totally agree that our idiot 'Bush' basically insulted the Chinese government with only a $.5M initial donation, it also stated that more would be available as soon as a damage assessment was done. But in my mind, we should certainly be able to do better than $.5M, even as an initial donation to a country that (we) want to be allies with more than any other nation in the world.

Here's an update on the USGovernment donations:

Source: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/MUMA-7F34BF?OpenDocument

As of May 29th, 2008
=================
FY 2008 HUMANITARIAN FUNDING FOR CHINA EARTHQUAKE
USAID/OFDA Assistance to China: $1,491,789
DOD(1) Assistance to China: $1,593,000
Total USG Humanitarian Assistance to China: $3,084,789

Source: http://www.redcross.org/pressrelease/0,1077,0_314_7772,00.html

As of May 23rd, 2008
==================
On May 15, the American Red Cross committed an initial $10 million to help those affected by this disaster. This contribution has supported the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, including the Red Cross Society of China, which have been helping survivors since the earthquake struck through the purchase and distribution of supplies, coordination of relief efforts and deployment of relief workers to the affected area.

I also know that the American public has donated more than $5M to the Red Cross, in addition to nearly $10M donated by companies like Cisco, Coca Cola, HP, etc.

-Ji Li