iConflict

In addition, the International Herald is reporting:

As the death toll in the earthquake last week in southwestern China continued to rise - exceeding 40,000, with tens of thousands still missing - the state media reported Tuesday that 129 students and 10 teachers had been rescued in an isolated town in Sichuan Province.

The official Xinhua press agency, which first reported the rescue in Yinxing, provided few details about the condition of the students or their circumstances when they were found, except to say that they had been ferried to Chengdu, the provincial capital, aboard eight military helicopters, and given medical treatment.

Earlier reports had said that 1,100 troops had been sent to the valley - 95 kilometers, or 60 miles, long - surrounding Yinxing, and that the troops were proceeding from hamlet to hamlet, redoubling search efforts in an area that appeared to have been largely overlooked in the initial response to the May 12 earthquake.

The students' rescue was a rare piece of bright news against a backdrop of devastation and continuing panic throughout the region amid warnings of fresh tremors. On Tuesday, the second day of a three-day period of national mourning that was seen by many as marking the unofficial end of earthquake rescue efforts, the government raised the confirmed number of dead to 40,075, with more than 32,000 still missing.

In the city of Mianyang, in the middle of the earthquake zone, residents braced themselves for a powerful new aftershock that government officials said could hit the area in the next few days.

That is amazing. Does anyone know if they were buried and recovered or if they were found in a remote village?

Sorry for that rumor, the PLA airborne soldiers have not fallen during the parachute task. This news has been confirmed, the first 15 airborne soldiers all landed successfully. Still, some rescuers sacrificed their lives in the frequent mudslides.

Jason, Kushh, Qiulin and other friends, thank you for all your e-mails, which bring me strenghth.
Sorry for having made no preparations and having no digital camera this time, I went to Chengdu with the notion of a dustman in Sigil that every body should be treated well as they past away. But after my blood donation they sent me back cause it was becoming dangerous to collect the rotten corpses underneath the rubble and there is no way to arrange me into the Wenchuan or Beichuan from Chendu, they burn the bodies on-site.
I came back last Friday as one of volunteers in www.Tianya.cn the NGO, we helped to subscribed more than 30 tons all kinds of goods and materials(most important the medicine and medical tools) for Sichuan from Guangzhou and other cities in just 3 days . You can see it in this website.
http://cache.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/no04/1/702899.shtml

My roomie of college era is now working in Mianyang as a Homer Simpsom, his family live in tent these days but he's still doing what he can do to help others in the Jiuzhou stadium with his bicycler-team. (He is the thinest one in the picture with blue socks.)
http://xc.2000y.net/614825/index.asp?xAction=xReadnews&newsid=4190

One of his neighbour jumped off their apartment building, commited suiside in Tuesday, no one knows the reason.
I will go to the Jiuzhou stadium of Mianyang in Sichuan again this week, as a Psychosocial Supporter of NGO for I have the psycho-assistant experience five years ago.
Jason, this time I will bring you pictures as possible.
I think the news from The New York Times, LAT, Newsweek, BBC, AFP and ect. , even from CNN, are all-round, objective and with justice. You ask me to bring more pictures last week, but I think the pictures from west agencies is much enough and good enough.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/05/19/world/0519-CHINA_14.html
And some vidoes you can see in the following media :
Phoenix TV ( itv.ifeng.com) It's an independent media based in HongKong, Beijing and Shenzhen, with a little government background, my favourite TV in chinese. http://phtv.ifeng.com/
the news
http://news.ifeng.com/special/0512earthquake/
all videos
http://itv.ifeng.com/topic.aspx
topic video about the earthquake
http://itv.ifeng.com/topiclist.aspx?id=0020-0026-0009
and
http://itv.ifeng.com/

TVB (HongKong; Pearl) In cantonese and english.
http://breakingnews.tvb.com/chinaquake/?row=11&video=http://vdo.tvb.com/g/20080519/20080519170822669-0519_14_01_01.flv&image=http://img.tvb.com/g/20080519/20080519170822669-0519_14_01_01-0000.jpg

ATV (HongKong TV in english language; chinese blood, irish heart) It's been banned in my internet and I don't know what's the stupid reasons. I can only see the news in some video websites, but I can watch the TV freely by television, it's wierd.
http://www.hkatvnews.com
http://www.56.com/w80/album-aid-1468480.html

And the local TV in Sichuan also did very good job this time, the 24-hours show is very impressed and helpful. If you are interested in, you can reach it by PPlive software or other p2p tools. But any of the local TV is in chinese.
And if anyone are interested in boring news, repeated videos, useless chats, you are welcome to cctv. Even HunanTV is much better than it.
But anyway, cctv-4 is in english.


Jason, although I haven't take any pictures this time, I think you may be willing to see these following pictures from Chinese agencies:
From pheonix:
foreign assistance (the American Heart-to-heart Team in Beichuan )
http://news.ifeng.com/photo/200805/0515_24_542449.shtml

foreign reporters
http://news.ifeng.com/photo/200805/0518_24_547501.shtml

and ... Chen Jian ...
http://hi.baidu.com/kuontherun/album/item/d868c33bac9e74f914cecb50.html#IMG=bdfc19f9dfdac54a242df29c
... Chen Jian, a normal name as his normal life, he buried in the debris, pressed underneath 3 cement walls.
http://www.bullog.cn/blogs/buchong/archives/138123.aspx
When the reporters and rescuers found him, he told to the reporter before he has been pulled out, " My wife is going to give birth to our baby, I can't just go away ... ... the cement walls pressed me ... ... I didn't eat a rice for whole 3 days, only drinked a little water but my opinion is, it is saying ... ... I'm a tough life, since I didn't die in the big disaster, I believe I can have late fortune then. My mood is stable, I can stick to it ... ... I can't give up anyone of my family, so I have to stick to it ... ... for all my family members did for me for the love they gave me. You guys should do so, don't be afraid in front of any troubles. "
http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/xwrwzhk/peoplemore/200805/20/t20080520_15541861.shtml
After 6 hours rescue work, he has been pulled out, he told the people around him" thank you " , after the team was sending him to the hospital, 10 minutes later, he dead for acute renal failure. The death remembers me how weak the life is, how impossible to foresee it, how short a real man's time is, just 73 hours and more 10 minutes.

There are too many touching stories we should remember in this disaster. I wanted to tell you but I can't. There is no fake stories as I know, all are real cause they are my familiar Chinese country-fellows.
There is a series of pictures
http://wangzhentian1982.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!109C03C55940B00E!395.entry
Those pictures are introduced by chinese language, I can translate it roughly:

No.1: Two cute little girls' smiling faces, the hope of tomorrow.
No.2: The girl's name is Deng Qingqing, she keep reading by electric torch under the debris cause she can defeat the dark and fear by this way. "It's dark all around, I'm terrified. I'm cold and hungry, can only overcome it by reading." Her honestness impressed the rest of us as her toughness.
No.3: The three survived girls kept studying in the refugee camp like other kids, they are the future of our people, the pillar of our country.
No.4: A young pioneer boy with an indebeted heart. His left arm has been broken.
No.5: It's a story about sacrifice. The fate cute baby's mother donated her life to protect her baby. When the rescuers cleaned up the debris and found the mother , they also found the sleeping baby under the mother's overarched remain. The doctor found a cellphone with a message in the screen, "Dear babe, if you can keep alive, you must remember I love you."
No.6: The lady is Zhang Furong, her husband Tan Qianqiu was a dean of the Dongqi middle school in Deyang. He sacrificed his life to save his 4 students during the disastrous earthquake.
No.7: Yuan Wenting, teacher of the Democratic Central element school, in Shigu town, Shifang city. She ran into the classroom time by time to save her shockened children. When the last time she ran into the building, her beautiful youth stopped at 20 years old. --We Chinese have a title for all the great teachers," People's Teacher ".
No.8: The angel for the trapped one.
No.9: The doctor who have no time to compare his just-borned wife.
No.10: Policewoman Jiang Xiaojuan from Jiangyou county, is nursing an orphan.
No.11: We call them the most lovable ones. They always came whenever and wherever the disasters happened.
No.12: " Take our life jacket! "
No.13: " I beg you to let me save one more! " the crying soldier is struggling to get into the dangerous building again during the big aftershock in the second day.
No.14: A texi driver, volunteer in Dujiangyan city, free to carry all the injured ones.
No.15: Chen Yan, an experienced rescuer from Dongguan, Guangdong province, has been called " hero " by others. He seccessfully saved 20 survivors in 70 hours without pause and rest.
No.16: One person's wedding in Nanjing's hotel. The bride named Qiu Yuanyuan, she insisted on the schedule without the bridegroom, air captain Rao Xin, ordered to rescue in the frontline. The bride donated all their handsel to Sichuan.
No.17: The 60-year-old beggar, donated RMB 105 to Sichaun, who is richer than most of us.
No.18: Zhao Pu, the only guy who work in cctv I'm well disposed to.
No.19: Li Bingbing, a celebrity whom I'm also well disposed to as her donation efforts and that longtime bow.
No.20: Wen Sir. The Prime Minister from now on.
No.21: Lanzhou city, the mourning night with 512 pray-candles. Young generations will grow up with mercy and sympathy, with strength and solidarity, with whom we can creat a brighter world.
( I heard the author Zhang Yihe said," I shed my tears in sadness. Again and again I asked myself: It's that our government and citizens to rescue the refugees and save the victims only? No! Refugees and victims are rescuing our government and saving us also.-- let the power get closer to humanity, let the hearts know clemency again. ")

Monday was the seventh day since the earthquake, "TouQi (the first seven)" as old chinese said, we believe the loved ones will come back to see us again in the day before they go to the heaven, all over the country were in silence and morned in the time, and the first time we have three days for national mourning and found something we lost since long time ago.

(Write in 20th May)

Update: Artist and writer Zhang Yihe said, " Is this just a moment for the government and the people to fight the disaster and provide relief to those who are suffering? No. The disaster and its victims are also providing redemption to the government and the people: those in power are learning to be humane, and the Chinese people are learning to be compassionate. "