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Massive Earthquake in China by Darth B'strad
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Massive Earthquake in China

Posted on May 19th, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Asia, Philosophy, Christianity.

Last Monday China had a massive earthquake that reached up the Richter scale to 7.9 making this one of the most devastating earthquakes in history. Now China is still feeling the effect of it with aftershoks spreading around. This from the New York Times:

Panic erupted here in the capital of Sichuan Province and at least one other Sichuan city on Monday after provincial television issued a warning of the possibility of a severe aftershock.

Near midnight in Chengdu, thousands of people trying to evacuate the city by car became mired in gridlock, stuck bumper to bumper in clotted streets. Other people quickly gathered blankets and rushed outside, planning to sleep on the street or in neighborhood parks.

In Mianyang, one of the areas hit hardest by last week’s earthquake, guests were evacuated from hotels, joining the masses in the streets. It was not immediately clear on what basis the warning was issued. Hundreds of aftershocks have occurred since the main earthquake on May 12, which the government now says reached a magnitude of 8.0.

The panic occurred hours after the country observed an official period of silence to mourn the tens of thousands of quake victims. At 2:28 p.m., exactly a week after the quake, traffic halted around the country, and millions of Chinese stood with bowed heads and moist eyes. Rescue workers also stopped to honor the dead, marking a pause in a difficult but enormous relief effort as the hopes of finding new survivors faded.

The many powerful aftershocks have hampered relief efforts in Sichuan, located in southwest China. Rain and floods have posed additional threats, forcing some operations to be temporarily suspended. The deaths caused by landslides were reported by Xinhua, the official news agency, but the brief report gave few other details.

This one has a horrible death toll to it.

But with the confirmed death toll raised to 34,073 by late Monday, and the government saying the figure could reach 50,000, there is more grief than hope here.

The NY Times also gives some of the tragic stories:

A group of 12 family members trudged together up the winding road to the town, the county seat. They carried large plastic bags stuffed with clothing and food. Since the earthquake, they had been living in a huge stadium in the city of Mianyang, but now they were making the inevitable trip back to their farming village, somewhere in the mountains.

“We’re just going to take a look,” said Li Zhongying, whose husband was still missing. “Tonight, we’ll sleep wherever we can find a place.”

Her daughter, Li Qingna, 28, walked slowly with a 2-year-old baby in her arms. Her eyes were wet. The walk would take another 10 hours.

Behind them came two men, one from Yunnan Province and the other from Beichuan. They had met on the road earlier on Monday and had been walking side by side since. The man from Yunnan had a wife, daughter and aunt who had migrated here to work at a power plant. He had not heard from them since the earthquake.

That evening, inside the town of Beichuan, four women wailed as they burned incense and paper money in front of a towering pile of rubble. They had returned home today, only to find that their parents had died in a building collapse.

“We wanted to come two days earlier, but we couldn’t get in,” one of the women screamed into the air, her words meant for her parents. “We only got here today!”

There were a few signs of hope, though. Dozens soldiers and rescue workers had gathered atop a mound of rubble in the town center in the late afternoon. They had discovered someone alive in a crevice, more than a week after the earthquake, and were working to get the person out.

Relief efforts are under way but with how massive this earthquake is, it’s hard to get relief in.

More than 240,000 people have been hospitalized. Many survivors were forced to have limbs amputated. And now, thousands of bodies are being buried and cremated.

Somehow, experts say, an entire region needs to be bulldozed and rebuilt. Hundreds of dams and power stations damaged by the earthquake need repair.

And perhaps most troubling, the government says that about five million people have been left homeless by the earthquake. While huge donations have poured in, totaling over $1.2 billion, many of the survivors say they have nowhere to go.

For the moment, they are living in tents and sports stadiums, reflecting on what has happened to them since that fateful moment last Monday.

“These days I keep going to every hospital in Mianyang trying to find my son,” said Yang Li, 29, who is living in a gymnasium complex and hoping that somehow she will find her 5-year-old boy, Wang Tong Tian, who was in kindergarten when the earthquake struck. “I keep praying we’ll find him. I want my son and I want my home.”

As a Christan, this is one of the hardest questions to answer. “How can God be so good when he allows such horrible tragedies to happen?” Was this a punishment from God to China for committing immoral acts? There is a possibility that God poured out his wrath over China and the dead are paying for their sins. There are a number of passages in the Old and New Testament where God did or will use natural disasters to punish the sins of an immoral city. However as I read the article in the NY times, wrath is not what I felt from God but rather, extreme grief. This is some 50,000 of human beings that he created and wanted to save. He knows the name and personalty of each and every one of the men, women, and children that died tragically in this earthquake. I can not believe that he wanted this! So why did this happen? Unfortunately we Christians do not have a very good answer for it. This is the same question that Job asked God while he was going through his torment of losing everything he had despite being a Godly man. However this is how God responded to him:

Job 38:2-6
2“Who is this that questions my wisdom
with such ignorant words?
3 Brace yourself like a man,
because I have some questions for you,
and you must answer them.

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
5 Who determined its dimensions
and stretched out the surveying line?
6 What supports its foundations,
and who laid its cornerstone

The truth of the matter is, we really can’t understand why such things happen. Only God really knows why it happens and it is beyond our understanding. This is one of thous things that makes faith in God so hard because He, by definition, is unknowable. We can see only small bits and pieces of him but God as a whole is unfathomable. We can not give him any counsel because it is Him that created wisdom in the first place. How is it possible the He could not know the absolute best way for you to live your life? God doesn’t really give us commandments that are easy to follow and so in Deuteronomy 6:5 where he says “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” That’s also God’s way of telling you that he knows that He’s not all that lovable at times. Things like this happen all the time in people’s lives and it’s hard to trust in God when they happen. However If you can trust in God despite all of the tragic events in the world and in your own life, God will bless you. I have seen it in my own life as I have talked about my life in my A True B’Strad posts. However no one (and that includes God) can force you to trust in him. That is a decision that is entirely yours to make.

May God Bless thous that have perished in this earthquake and thous that suffer with it. If you would like to help, Caring for China has set up a relief fund going to help them.

Update:The horrible death toll just went up to 70,000

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