Among a Chinese blog collection of photos of Beichuan near the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake is a sad, sad photo of a deceased girl with one leg protruding from a pancaked stack of concrete that used to be Beichuan Middle School (note: a Chinese middle school is the equivalent to a North American high school). In photos #24 and #25, she appears to have been caught just a few inches shy of escaping the collapsing building. Images of schools flattened into tombs filled with hundreds of students while goverment and other buildings remain standing have upset Chinese citizens.
Media use of graphic images like the girl crushed under concrete have been questioned as inappropriate or sensationalist, but I think the judicious use of photos of violent injury and death can arouse sympathy that translates into aid and national reflection and public anger that pressures officials to make needed changes.
HT to former TMH commenter Sunbin.
Chinese internet coverage of the Sichuan earthquake has noted that a tiny minority known as the Qiang were particularly devastated, for their villages were located near the epicenter; casualty estimates range from 25-50% of the Qiang killed by the quake.
9 Comments
Sonagi I agree with your thoughts on publishing the pictures because if enough people in China see them then maybe public anger will be enough that they will demand the government begin to refit at least all the schools to withstand an earthquake.
They need all the help they can get, to get those experienced rescuers to rescue all those people who are still trapped. Unfortunately, pride and anti-Western feelings within the Chinese government and her supporters don’t allow that to happen.
Brits and Canadian rescuers are stopped at the airport.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7406292.stm
They need all the help they can get, to get those experienced rescuers to rescue all those people who are still trapped. Unfortunately, pride and anti-Western feelings within the Chinese government and her supporters don’t allow that to happen.
Brits and Canadian rescuers are stopped at the airport.
Brit and Canadian rescuers blocked by Chinese government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7406292.stm
Brits and Canadian rescuers are stopped at the airport.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7406292.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7406292.stm
Amateur video by a non-Chinese at the moment of the quake.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4743006
Russians, South Koreans, Singaporeans, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongers have arrived to help.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20.....0516173715
I couldn’t find an article about Brits or Canadians being turned away.
All this time I thought these were the same people that will own the world and enslave the human race, making America its footstool…
Apparently even China is subject to the laws of nature and the inherent folly of man.
The dragon bleeds after all…