May 16, 2008 6:52 AM
China earthquake - you need to know
The villages/towns/cities most affected by the earthquake are difficult to reach and it is taking some time for journalists to get there, but reports are filtering back.
This is the most compassionate account I've heard, as the writer recounts becoming involved - at least to a small extent -in the rescue effort:
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Beichuan: a vision of hell
Beichuan was a town of 160,000 nestling in one of the world's most beautiful valleys. When rescuers arrived yesterday, they found a scene of unimaginable devastation and despair
Reaching Beichuan is a long march into hell. When you finally emerge scrabbling through the dirt into the town, what lies before you is a breathtaking vision of horror. Official estimates say China's worst natural disaster in 30 years has claimed 50,000 lives so far, but looking at the devastation here, it is hard not to imagine the final toll will be much, much higher.
Beichuan county in Sichuan province used to be home to 160,000 people, and most of them lived in the now-forsaken town of the same name, nestling in one of the world's most beautiful valleys. But everyone is gone, either dead or having abandoned their flattened home.
Beichuan was too close to the epicentre of this week's earthquake to stand a chance. At least 80 per cent of it is destroyed, with many thousands of bodies still buried in the rubble. It's hard to imagine this place ever functioning as a town again.
Read entire article here
I think it's important for our children to know what is happening across the globe, and for us to help them understand. However, it can be quite traumatic. In January 2005, I wrote an article wrote an article called Help kids make sense of tsunamis - the principles there can be applied to any disaster your children hear about in the news.
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