Sichuan earthquake

As I flip through the newspaper today it seems that there are more bad news by the day. Firstly, making the local headline is the catastrophic Sichuan earthquake that has killed more than 30 thousand people. The death toll seems to increase by the day and as of dated May 5th 2008 at the time of this writing at 2.33pm afternoon; Sichuan local provincial leader put the death and missing toll at over 70 thousand victims. Many countries have offered to help in the spirit of humanity.

This includes Japan, the 1st country allowed and quickly approved by China to send search and rescue team to help with the disaster humanitarian recovery efforts. Japan’s search and rescue efforts were quickly followed by Singapore, Russia and the nearby surrounding countries supports. There are talk and discussion regarding apart from the human loss, the economical impact and loss that could amount to billions of dollars. I believed money is not an issue to China, being one of the leading economic powerhouse with plenty of reserves, rather the major impact is on health risk posed by potential nuclear power plant leak, overflow river embankments that may cause major floods, decompose bodies which may result in serious contamination of water, and the overall social environmental impact. It is indeed unfortunate and untimely for such a great tragedy to occur so close to the Olympic event that China is looking forward to host.