Sichuan Earthquake.

The Chinese earthquake promises more economic dislocation.

Miscellaneous.

A lawsuit has been dismissed involving a movie made about the racehorse Ruffian.
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A congressional subcommittee wants to look at thoroughbred breakdowns, drug use, and breeding.

The drug use can be dealt with, but breeding sound horses is a much tougher task and could take a couple of generations at least to correct it.

Even then breakdowns will happen, just as people get hurt in athletic events.
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A giant panda missing since the Sichuan earthquake has been found.
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Speaking of the earthquake, an aftershock has left two dead and 70,000 homes destroyed.

The death toll so far from the earthquake of two weeks ago is over 62,000.
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As everybody knows, but I am the last to note, the Phoenix lander plopped itself on the north pole of Mars today. This photo, a screen grab from NASA TV, shows what the area looks like.

More.
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Miscellaneous.

It is quite obvious why it is Chinese schools crumbled so easily while government buildings and buildings belonging to international corporations fared so well; in fact, you might even say it is representative of just what is important to Chinese officials.

What's a few million dead Chinese anyway, even if they are children, when there are millions more to exploit?

Sichuan Earthquake.

Estimates of the missing or dead are upwards of 71,000 as a result of last Monday's devastating 7.9 earthquake.

Again, it's probably conservative.

Sichuan Earthquake.

After TV appeals a baby boy found in the rubble was reunited with his parents.
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Thus far the death toll has risen to 22,069, with nearly 5 MILLION homeless. Watch the video at the link about the rescue. The report is asking why so many school buildings collapsed.

Especially in light of the fact corporate and government buildings fared far better.
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A Tourist

filmed the earthquake as it happened:



A big challenge now is to stem the damage to the dams.

The WSWS looks at the tragedy from its perspective:

Although the earthquake is a natural disaster, the extent of the destruction and death has exposed the monstrous reality of an irrational social order that puts private profit ahead of the safety and well being of people. Anger is mounting at the shoddy character of the buildings in the impoverished towns and villages and the stark inequality between rich and poor.

Sichuan Earthquake.

The death toll from Monday's devastating earthquake in China could rise to 50,000, government officials are now saying.

I'd bet that's a conservative estimate.

Sichuan Earthquake.

The death toll continues to mount in China following Monday's earthquake, with some of the more devastated areas not even reporting their casualties yet.

This is interesting to note:

On May 13 Newsweek spoke to Weimin Dong of Risk Management Solutions, a firm that specializes in assessing financial risks due to physical catastrophes like storms and earthquakes. He noted that the current earthquake’s intensity—a measure of how far the ground moves from its original position during the earthquake—was over 9, whereas Chinese building codes require that buildings be able to survive an earthquake of intensity 7.

Asked why the requirements were set so low, Dong said: “You cannot require all of the buildings designed to [be fully equipped], because it costs a lot. You have to have larger beam sizes and everything else, so it’s a cost consideration. [...] It’s not like in Beijing or Shanghai—there they just pull down the old building and build a new high-rise. But in the rural areas, the larger buildings are the older buildings.

“From the pictures of the schools, it seems like there was some kind of reinforcement, but it [was] not well designed [and] it doesn’t seem like the building design considered the impact of earthquakes at all.”

As I said before, what's a few hundred thousand (or even a few million) dead Chinese anyway? There are a lot more from where they came from, so corporations dependent on slave labor won't be hurting.

The death toll has officially risen to 15,000. Nearly 60,000 people are missing near the epicenter of the quake. Rescuers have their work cut out for them as they reach the epicenter.

I wouldn't be surprised if the total dead ultimately tops 100,000.

Now officials are worried about cracks in a dam as a result of the earthquake.

Sichuan Earthquake II.

So far 12,000 fatalities have been reported for this earthquake, but another 18,000 are buried under rubble in a single city.

This is an earlier report:



A seismologist predicted five years ago Sichuan would have a major earthquake.

Citizen journalists were out and about recording the earthquake and its aftermath.

Bloggers are hard at work writing about the earthquake, and there are a few peddling conspiracy theories.

Sichuan Earthquake.

Almost 12,000 people have been reported dead and tens of thousands more are still buried under rubble as a result of yesterday's massive earthquake in China.

Now the death toll has exceed 12,000.

In the WSWS's eyes, foreign countries which have profited immensely from the exploitation of Chinese labor can rest easy knowing the earthquake happened in a less-populated, less-industrialized area of China.

According to their article, China still has a long way to go to make improvements in combating the worst in earthquakes:

The lack of government control over many economic sectors has significantly weakened its ability to coordinate disaster relief. Furthermore, while infrastructure for foreign investors is world class, transport, communications and other services in more backward provinces such as Sichuan is poor.

Sichuan is located at the fringes of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau—a zone particularly prone to earthquakes. It is already clear from the extensive damage, particularly in rural areas, that most buildings were not constructed to withstand tremors. A design code to take earthquakes into account was only instituted after the Tangshan disaster in 1976, and many buildings in Sichuan simply did not meet even its minimal requirements. Building codes are openly flouted by developers determined to maximise profits.

If this is the case, we can expect tens of thousands more deaths.

How does this affect the economy there?

Toyota Motor Corp and other Japanese companies have suspended operations in Sichuan. A Toyota joint venture manufacturing small buses and sports utility vehicles in Chengdu has been shut down too. The venture, Sichuan Faw Toyota Motor, produces 13,000 vehicles a year and has 1,600 employees.

Trading in 66 listed companies based in southwestern China was suspended from Tuesday. In a quick assessment, overseas economists were split on the impact of the natural disaster on China's macro economy.

Merrill Lynch analysts T J Bond and Ting Lu said in a written statement, "We think the earthquake today should have much smaller impact on China's macro economy than the snowstorm in January-February, especially regarding CPI [consumer price index] inflation, industrial production and exports. We thus conclude that the earthquake is unlikely to have significant impact on current macro policies."

Thank God for that. What's a few hundred thousand deaths anyway if the economy isn't hurt badly?