Chinese Earthquake. | Thread profile

Full story and details on the BBC news website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7396 400.stm Following the cyclone in Burma just over a week ago, South East Asia has suffered another natural disaster; this time in China. Early death tolls estimate up to 8,500 dead, including up to 900 students from one school within the epicentre of the quake. This is horrendous news...

Always sad to hear about large deathtolls. also, Bloody hell Sway it makes my travel stories i told you like bedside fairytales in comparrison, hope it all calms down before you get there. Hope you are booked away from the olympic areas so it's not really busy. (in reply to Sway )

Nasty. Apparently the aftershocks are among the largest quakes in recent years as well. First Burma, now China. I wouldn't want to be living somewhere without a democratically-elected leader right now. Hang on... < Message edited by pettsy -- 13/5/2008 9:07:17 PM >

Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm totally against China's human rights abuses, and don't want to reduce this to some sort of flippant comparison, but, should a brutal natural disaster occur where I live, I'd have to say I wish it was under the Chinese superpower as opposed to the U.S. Compare it to Katrina and suddenly the States looks even more pathetic, what with Bush's numerous days of delay ...

Does anyone else find it objectionable that amidst the thousands of deaths caused by this earthquake, the BBC hears that there are a handful of British tourists and concentrates on asking about those? If you have family there, then you're already going to be concerned. It just seems that they're trying to find some way of 'identifying' with the disaster, and ending up grossly under-representing ...