China has asked Japan to send military assistance after a devastating earthquake this month that killed more than 67,000 people, Japan's foreign ministry said yesterday.
Tokyo is considering its response to the request, the top government spokesman said, adding that he did not believe such a mission would involve Japanese troops operating on the ground.
Japan’s military has not been deployed in China since the end of World War II.
PHOTO: AFP/NSPO
“There was a request from the Chinese side to our embassy in Beijing yesterday. It asked for relief materials and transport, including from the Self-Defense Forces [SDF],” Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference on Tuesday.
“It is not entirely clear, but I think they want SDF tents and blankets to be transported to a Chinese airport by SDF planes,” Machimura said.
He said he had heard requests had been made to other countries.
Shortly after the May 12 quake, Japan sent rescue teams and a medical team to Sichuan Province.
Nearly 160,000 people were evacuated downstream from an unstable earthquake-created lake in Sichuan, while the government warned that rebuilding after the disaster would be “arduous.”
Some 158,000 people have been evacuated and dozens of villages emptied in case the newly formed Tangjiashan lake bursts before soldiers and engineers can drain it, the official China Daily said yesterday.
Troops used explosives to clear debris and helicopters to airlift heavy moving equipment to dig drainage channels from the lake, located about 3.2km above the devastated town of Beichuan.
Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) told a meeting of the State Council that handling the danger from the swelling lakes was the “most pressing task” in the disaster recovery effort, the newspaper said.
The government has allocated 200 million yuan (US$28.6 million) to deal with the swelling lakes, the Xinhua news agency said. Of 34 lakes created by the earthquake in the mountainous province, 28 were at risk of bursting, the agency said.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed deaths from the quake climbed toward an expected toll of more than 80,000. The Cabinet said yesterday that 68,109 people were killed, with 19,851 still missing.
The National Development and Reform Commission warned that rebuilding after the quake would be difficult.
“Due to the immense magnitude of loss resulted from the quake, production recovery and reconstruction of the quake-hit region wilommission said in a statement, adding that major infrastructure had been “severely damaged.”
In other developments, torrential rains that killed 28 people in Guizhou Province were forecast to continue for the next three days.
Eighteen people have died in flooding since Sunday, Xinhua reported late on Tuesday. Twelve were missing.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of