Propaganda chiefs ban reporters from outside quake zone
The Communist Party's publicity department banned the media from provinces other than Qinghai from covering the 7.1 magnitude earthquake in the Tibetan-populated Yushu prefecture because of political and religious sensitivities.
People close to one newspaper in Nanjing, Jiangsu, and three Shanghai-based media outlets said a notice from the publicity department had ordered chief editors to recall reporters heading to the disaster area.
'The notice said that 'for safety reasons, please recall all reporters from the disaster area as soon as possible because of the frequent aftershocks',' one person who had seen the notice said.
After the massive earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, the publicity department banned non-Sichuan media from visiting the Tibetan-populated Aba and Ganzi prefectures in the west of the province.
However, then as well as now, many mainland media has chosen to ignore such bans, with some sending up to a dozen reporters to quake-hit Yushu county in Yushu prefecture.
Yushu county, more than 4,500 metres above sea level, is at the headwaters of the Yellow, Yangtze and Lancang rivers. Prefecture and county government buildings were based in the county town of Jiegu, the epicentre of yesterday's quake.
The prefecture's population is 97 per cent Tibetan, making it a sensitive area since rioting in Lhasa on March 14, 2008, that caused the deaths of at least 22 people.
The authorities in Beijing have stepped up oversight of Tibetan monasteries in Yushu, where many monks have supported Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. In April 2008, hundreds of monks protested outside their monasteries in the prefecture to ask Beijing to allow the Dalai Lama to return.
Yushu county, with an area of 15,700 square kilometres, has a population of just 100,000, one of the lowest population densities in the country. The heavy death toll recorded in the first few hours following the quake is a telltale sign of the scale of the disaster.
Three of the six towns in Yushu prefecture were cut off from the outside world and at least 90 per cent of the residential buildings in Yushu county were toppled by the quake, Pan Zhigang, the prefecture's public security chief, told the People's Daily yesterday.
'We have lost contact with Qumarleb, Zadoi and Langqian counties after the quake,' he was quoted as saying.
'The death toll will rise because villagers can only pull away bricks and chunks of concrete with their bare hands due to the lack of large excavators to dig out people buried under rubble.'
Besides excavators, Pan stressed that rescuers needed the help of professional medical staff and medicines to treat thousands of people injured by the quake.
The China Earthquake Network Centre said Yushu county's power supply and fixed-line telephone services were cut since the quake.
Survivors were bracing for a cold night, with temperatures below zero. China News Service quoted the head of Yushu prefecture's Meteorological Bureau, Dhak Tashi, as saying that people were still wearing bulky winter clothes.
'We are setting up camps for villagers because even the government buildings have cracks,' Dhak Tashi said.
'The blackout and fixed-line service suspension have also affected our meteorological communication and weather prediction operations.'
