The death toll in this week’s earthquake in western China has risen to 74 with 26 people still missing, the government reported yesterday, as frustration rose with uncompromising COVID-19 lockdown measures that prevented residents from leaving their buildings after the shaking.
The magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck just after noon on Monday in Sichuan Province caused extensive damage to homes in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and shook buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where 21 million people are under a strict COVID-19 lockdown.
Following the quake, police and health workers refused to allow anxious residents out of apartment buildings, adding to anger over the government’s strict “zero-COVID-19” policy mandating lockdowns, quarantines and other restrictions, even while the rest of the world has largely reopened.
Photo: Reuters
Footage circulating online showed residents of the central city of Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic is believed to have originated in late 2019, chanting “lift the lockdown, refuse to be tested” at police.
The restrictions have prompted protests online and in person, rare in China’s tightly controlled society where the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party can easily sentence people to months or years in prison on loosely defined charges such as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
In all, 65 million Chinese in 33 cities, including seven provincial capitals, are under varying levels of lockdown. The government is also discouraging domestic travel during the Mid-Autumn Festival on Saturday and the week-long National Day at the start of next month.
Outbreaks have been reported in 103 cities, the highest since the early days of the pandemic in early 2020.
Monday’s quake was centered in a mountainous area of Luding County, which sits on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau about 200km from Chengdu, where tectonic plates grind up against each other.
China’s deadliest earthquake in the past few years was a magnitude 7.9 magnitude quake in 2008 that killed nearly 90,000 people in Sichuan. The temblor devastated towns, schools and rural communities outside Chengdu, leading to a years-long effort to rebuild with more resistant materials.
‘SHARP COMPETITION’: Australia is to partner with US-based Lockheed Martin to make guided multiple launch rocket systems, an Australian defense official said Australia is to ramp up missile manufacturing under a plan unveiled yesterday by a top defense official, who said bolstering weapons stockpiles would help keep would-be foes at bay. Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said the nation would establish a homegrown industry to produce long-range guided missiles and other much-needed munitions. “Why do we need more missiles? Strategic competition between the United States and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment,” Conroy said in a speech. “That competition is at its sharpest in our region, the Indo-Pacific.” Australia is to partner with US-based weapons giant Lockheed Martin to make
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
Pets are not forgotten during Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, when even Fido and Tiger get a place at the altars Mexican families set up to honor their deceased loved ones, complete with flowers, candles and photographs. Although the human dead usually get their favorite food or drink placed on altars, the nature of pet food can make things a little different. The holiday has roots in Mexican pre-Hispanic customs, as does the reverence for animals. The small, hairless dogs that Mexicans kept before the Spanish conquest were believed to help guide their owners to the afterlife, and were sometimes given