“It is very cold at night as our family hasn’t got a tent,” Qiucuo, an eight-year-old Zang girl, shared. She, together with her family and relatives, is sleeping on the street after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Qinghai Province in western China. “Our house collapsed totally. We have been sleeping in the open area for nearly six days.”
An assessment team from World Vision, bringing along a truck of relief items, set off to the quake zone immediately after the earthquake hit. Our staff met Qiucuo in a village of Jiegu Township in Yushu County of Qinghai and gave her a child friendly kit. She felt so happy that she shared the kit with her sister and cousins.
Qiucuo is a primary two student. Besides her parents, she also has an elder brother and three elder sisters. However, her brother and two sisters have left home for work. Qiucuo studies with her 13-year-old sister in the same school.
Qiucuo was still scared when she recalled the earthquake. “On that day, my classmates and I were preparing for the first lesson. Suddenly, the school shook. Some of the classmates knew there was an earthquake. We rushed out from the school building to an open area immediately. I felt very frightened.”
Although the school building did not collapse, some big lumps fell and hit some students. Qiucuo said that three of her classmates were killed by the earthquake. “I feel upset about that.”
Just recovering from fright, Qiucuo then ran back home. She found that her house and other houses nearly collapsed totally. Some of her relatives were slightly injured. Fortunately, there was no casualty in Qiucuo’s family.
However, life was still tough for them as the family has not got a tent to live in. While they were waiting for the relief tent, they could only sleep in the open area at night. Jiegu Township is situated in the mountainous area and has a wide temperature range between day and night. Qiucuo and her family then found some quilts and clothes among the debris of their house to keep themselves warm at night.
“It is very cold as the wind is strong at night. We need to sleep closely in order to keep warm.” One of her cousins had a running nose as Qiucuo told us her story. You can imagine that the situation will become worse if there is rain or snow at night.
The problem of food supply was not a serious issue for them as the family very luckily found their food storage from the debris. However, Qiucuo does not know when she will be able to go back to school as the school building became dangerously unstable. “I wish I could be a teacher in future. I love my teachers and I wish I will be like them.”
The quake
On April 14 at 7:49 am, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale rocked Qinghai Province, west of China. The epicentre is located in Jiegu Township, county seat of Yushu County, Yushu Zang Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province. The State Commission of Disaster Relief reported that over 100,000 people are adversely affected and 15,000 households lost their houses in the earthquake and were evacuated to temporary shelter. The disaster was graded as Level 4 of China Natural Disaster Response on April 14, and was upgraded to Level 1 as damage escalated the same day. By May 04, 2010, there were 2,220 people dead and 70 missing.
Effects of the quake
Reports state that many building were damaged and telecommunications were down. The quake also caused great damages to public infrastructure.
Many houses have collapsed or were severely damaged. According to reports from the State Commission of Disaster Relief, houses of 15,000 families collapsed, and over 100,000 people had to be evacuated to safety. The affected families had to live in temporary shelters, such as staying with their relatives or friends or shelter camps.
Due to the frequent aftershocks and many damaged and collapsed buildings in the affected counties, many affected have to live in temporary shelters. Moreover, since the quake-affected counties are located in high elevation areas, the cold and windy weather makes it an even more hostile environment for these affected people.
Chengduo, the county neighboring the epicenter Yushu County, was also hard-hit by the earthquake. In Chengwen, Labu, Xiewu and Gaduo Townships, the affected population had reached 34,000. In Chengduo alone, over 10,000 houses collapsed or became dangerously unstable.
The earthquake caused much damage to education facilities as well. As of April 17, it was reported that 70% of education facilities (100,000 square meters of school buildings and dormitories) in Jiegu Township have collapsed or been badly damaged.
How World Vision is assisting Qinghai Survivors
Relief Phase:
World Vision has finished its second assessment in Qinghai Earthquake earlier and distributed relief quilts to the survivors immediately after arriving in Chengduo County in Yushu Prefecture. According to the assessment results, food supplies, hygiene kits and children education supplies are some of the urgent needs in the relief phase.
Food is one of the pressing needs among the affected people. As the affected area is one of the national level poverty county, it is expected that staple food will be one of the urgent needs in the next six months or more.
The government has announced a program to supply 2 months of food grains to the affected population. In the meantime, World Vision has delivered 1,000 boxes of instant noodles in affected areas in the early stage of the relief phase as the affected does not have access to cooking facilities in the first week after the quake.
According to the result of a second assessment in Chengduo County, warming quilts is identified as one of the urgent needs due to the cold weather. To help villagers keep warm, a total of 2,000 quilts have been distributed since mid-April 2010. Estimated number of beneficiaries would be 4,000. This distribution was held in Chengduo County. Estimated budget of this distribution was USD 33,088.
Since they have lost their possessions, personal hygiene items is one of the urgent needs. World Vision handed out personal hygiene kits to minimise the spreading of diseases and illnesses.
Temporary shelter is also identified as another urgent need. A total of 500 tents will be distributed. Each tent can accommodate 4 people. Estimated budget will be USD 220,500 helping 2,000 people.
Rehabilitation Phase:
House rehabilitation activities, school rehabilitation activities and Disaster Risk Reduction activities will be part of the rehabilitation phase.
World Vision plans to input over RMB 7 million (about USD 1 million) to distribute food and non-food items which will benefit over 60,000 people. Apart from distributing bags of flour and folding beds to the quake-affected people, World Vision also plans to help the displaced students, who mostly stayed in boarding schools, resume normalcy. Other than the 5000 desk-and-chair sets, a total of 5,000 back-to school kits will also be distributed. The kit includes a school bag with 18 items, consisting of a pencil case, a dictionary which illustrates the meaning of words in Zang, English and Mandarin, ballpoint pens, cup, towel, Disaster Safety Awareness Booklets (published by World Vision) and so on. Total budget is USD80,882 helping 5,000 children.
With their basic daily supplies destroyed during the disaster, this project plans to also distribute 1,500 school boarder’s packs to the students. Each pack contains 14 items, including a set of tracksuit, pairs of socks, a pair of slippers, a torch, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and so on. Estimated budget will be at USD66,176 helping 1,500 students.
The project will also distribute 100 child friendly kits to the children in the affected area to help them re-establish routine and normalcy. An estimate of 400 children will benefit from this psychosocial support activity. The kits (child-friendly kits) contain toys, stationeries and simple hygiene items. Each kit will be shared between four children.
Children in or after an emergency usually feel lonely, helpless, hopeless and empty. Maintaining routine and playtime is very important for the children during this period. Addressing the psycho-social well-being of the children is identified as one of the urgent needs.
In terms of improving the shelter shortage, beds are one of the essential items to provide the affected with a better rest environment. This project plans to distribute 3,000 foldable beds with an estimated budget of USD176,471 assisting 3,000 people.
House rehabilitation, along with school reconstruction, is also identified as one of the critical rehabilitation needs. House rehabilitation project will assist these who were rendered homeless in the quake to resume normalcy.
The project will provide house rehabilitation subsidy to families who have lost their homes in the quake. World Vision house rehabilitation subsidy is RMB5,000 (USD735). Site settlement will be made with community participation. House rehabilitation site selection will consider access of water, electricity and road linkages. The new houses will consider better disaster -resistant capabilities to build more resilient infrastructure. It is planned that a total of 200 households will be supported. Estimated budget of house rehabilitation will be at USD147,060 with an estimated 800 beneficiaries.
The rehabilitation projects will be managed by HEA Department of World Vision China. It is planned that house reconstruction planning will start in July 2010 with further assessment and construction will end by March 2012.
It’s estimated that all the distribution activities will be completed by December 2010 with an estimated 25,100 beneficiaries. All the rehabilitation activities will be completed by March 2012 helping a total of 3,200 beneficiaries. The total budget is USD 2,033,719 with an estimated 28,300 beneficiaries.
How you can help
Thousands of children and families are devastated by the earthquake in Qinghai. Your contribution will help our staff members rush emergency assistance to those in greatest need following the disaster.
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