CHINA just evacuated 790,000 in path of hurricane, "W"

[Bluebear]

China evacuated more than 790,000 people as powerful Typhoon Talim slammed into its east coast yesterday after barrelling across Taiwan, where it left three dead and dozens injured.

Talim was forecast to be the strongest storm to hit China this season and the observatory in Fujian province issued its highest-level alert, warning of potential landslides, flooding and widespread damage.

With a radius of 250 kilometres, Talim was packing centre winds of up to 144 kilometres per hour, according to the central weather bureau in Taiwan.


http://smh.com.au/news/world/china-evacuates-790000-as-...

[intheflow]

1. Nominated for the world to see.

I never would have thought I'd be envying China's political leadership.

[Bluebear]

3. Indeed! nt

[eleny]

4. I'll second that

Three quarter of a million people and we can't evacuate one city.

[DistressedAmerican]

5. Again

[beam me up scottie]

2. Did they forget about the people who had no cars?

How about the elderly?
The sick?
The homeless?

I wonder if they have so many more people because they don't abandon the weak and the vulnerable during disasters.

[Bluebear]

7. "Some people refused to leave blah blah blah"

Yeah, the po' folk "refused" to leave NO.

[beam me up scottie]

11. I would have been one of those people.

Because I couldn't leave.

How about you?

How many of us know people who would have been left behind?

I got so sick of hearing that from their own governor, and the other ones who should be screaming for justice.

[deadparrot]

6. Well, now that *China's* government has proven to be more competent

than ours, I feel much safer.

Three dead. And "dozens" injured.

Of course, you never want death or injuries, but if only injuries numbered in the "dozens" for Katrina.

[Matariki]

47. more competent and more compassionate

[Robbie Michaels]

8. How Come We Couldn't Do That?

Okay, dumb question but it needs to be asked!

[Miss Chybil]

14. This is a FREE country - meaning you are free to stay in the path

of a storm, if you like. There is always a price to pay for freedom.

On edit: Not to say the only people left in NO were the ones who CHOSE to stay there, as some politicians are trying to infer and as such inferring the refugees should not be bitching because the rescue is taking so long. I know most of the people couldn't leave. I may have been one of them, had I lived there and had to choose between using my last $20 for gas out of town, or thinking I might need it for food the next day.

[walldude]

16. Yeah? Well the American poor aren't as free

as you think. You are told to evacuate. You have no car, no money and no one to help you. How do you get out? Sorry to insult you but you sound like Rush and O'Rielly.

[SofaKingLiberal]

20. He's right it is a free country

People are free to blame the victims.

[Miss Chybil]

22. Read my edit.

But I still stand by the fact it's a free country and as such is much harder to control. That's a FACT. I realize the great majority of people left in NO couldn't leave and that's where our government failed them. They should have given them transportation out of town. Even at that, though, there would still be a lot of people who wouldn't leave. That's the way we are. We're Americans. We don't always do what we're told.

[walldude]

25. In the past I would have agreed with you

I lived in Miami for 10 years, people used to have hurricane parties when they heard a storm was coming. Then Andrew came. No more parties. And while I believe you are right a few people would have stayed behind, it sure wouldn't have been 250,000 people.

[hunter]

30. More than "transportation out of town..."

If you have money and/or friends and family to stay with, a hurricane evacuation is almost like a vacation. Put your pets and a few of your family's most treasured possesions in your SUV and off you go!

You stay at the Holiday Inn, you become a friend of the president, and next thing you know you are the undersecretary of FEMA...

But that's not the same as riding a crowded bus with what little you can carry, eating crappy food, and sleeping on the floor of a high school gymnasium.

The people of New Orleans didn't even get that...

There are people who post on DU who didn't get that -- people who stayed, or scraped what little they could together, and set out on the road leaving friends and pets behind, not knowing where they would end up, or what they would come back to.

You want to evacuate New Orleans?

Give everybody who gets on the bus spending money, good food, the promise of a future, and put them all someplace nice to be. Provide nurses for the infirm, and lots of fun things for the kids to do.

Make it one big party if that's what it takes to get people to leave.
Have special beer busses if that's what it takes...

I best end with that utopian fantasy. I am still ferociously angry.

[kster]

23. I will never

believe tens of thousands of people decided to ride out this storm, Nope me thinks their evacuation procedure was as FUCKED UP as their rescue procedure.

[daleo]

27. The poor are free to sleep under a bridge, free to drown in a hurricane.

A French intellectual noted this type of freedom quite a while ago.

[Robeson]

49. "There is always a price to pay for freedom"...

...Wow, those words could have came right of Bush's mouth. Total jingoism.

[leftchick]

43. because they want us dead

it is that simple

[Horse with no Name]

9. "Where it left "3" dead"

There are thousands dead in New Orleans.

[WiseButAngrySara]

10. Kick and recommended. I want everyone to read this and WEEP!!

Enough of the bfee's hypocrisies and lies. IMPEACH!

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. Kick!!!!!!

[Miss Chybil]

13. Is it too late to fix Global Warming? nt

[WiseButAngrySara]

15. Kick!..........n/t

[Synnical]

17. In cases like this, "Forced Evacuation" has its points

From the article:

Electricity was cut to 1.7 million homes but most were expected to be reconnected before the end of the day.

and

Most air and land traffic was expected to return to normal yesterday as the typhoon moved away.

Major kick

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Kick! nt

[G_j]

19. nominated, will someone ask Chertoff about this?

[PA Democrat]

21. And I'll bet many of those people didn't own cars. n/t

[yellowdogintexas]

24. made me sick to see the school buses floating in the water..

why in HELL weren't those busses out on the streets of NO on Sunday, getting people out of the city.??

[fujiyama]

36. I saw that and didn't understand that one bit

There shouldn't have been a single mass transit/public transportation vehicle in the flood zone. Every single one should have been used to evacuate residents.

This is indefensible and inexcusable. I don't care who is saying "we didn't see this coming" whether it's a Dem or the bastards from this administration. It's an excuse that falls flat on its face. I remember hearing about the storm first either on Friday evening or Saturday afternoon. By Saturday night, it was obvious that this thing would be big and would be approaching the gulf coast.

This administration has dragged this nation to the depths of hell.

[Cleita]

26. Yes, it can be done, can't it?

eom

[TransitJohn]

28. Totally nominated

[beam me up scottie]

29. Kick!

[newswolf56]

31. When we badmouth China for playing capitalist games...

we forget the fact China is still a Marxist country -- that what it is doing is using capitalism against capitalism and thereby not only avoiding the economic mistakes that destroyed the Soviet Union but putting China in a superior position to further additional revolutions abroad. Thus I am not surprised the Chinese successfully evacuated more than 790,000 persons. I have said on other posts that -- given the Tyrannosauric form of capitalism Bush and the oligarchy have unleashed on America -- the time would come when we would be dying of homelessness, starvation and disease even as the Chinese were sleeping in real beds under real roofs and eating three meals a day. I had no doubt my prediction would come true -- I just had no idea it would come true so soon, or even that I would live to see it happen.


Edit: for clarity.

[Mnemosyne]

32. .

[cire4]

33. So a one-party communist state can do the job better

than the Bush administration....

Nice argument for 'democracy' you are giving Georgie....

[Synnical]

34. Haven't kicked this yet?

Sent it to many friends.

My bad.

[newswolf56]

35. Nominated.

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. The GOPs figure anyone who doesn't have a car and lots of money to

pay for living away for months at a time just isn't worth saving. After all, they're unlikely to give big GOP campaign contributions.

I fear the death toll from this hurricane will be very, very high. Most of them will have died AFTER the hurricane, and there is no excuse for this. It's passive genocide.

Even "rescue" is no guarantee for keeping your life if you're poor:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
Thread title: 100 Dead after being rescued from roof tops

[Pacifist Patriot]

38. Go figure. It can be done.

[tgnyc]

39. Yeah, but what about the black Chinese people?

[SalmonChantedEvening]

40. shame shame shame shame shame shame shame shame

[Misunderestimator]

41. Damn. Nominated.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

42. It just shows how incompetent the GOP is in comparison

It's absolutely rotten.

[goodhue]

44. This needs to be more widely reported!

Quite a contrast.

[Usrename]

45. how do you say "global warming" in Chinese. They get it. n/t

[Turn CO Blue]

46. Did I ever tell you that I love your threads?!? Well, I do. n/t

[Bluebear]

51. Cheers, TCB n/t

[gkhouston]

48. 144 *kilometres* per hour. So they evacuated 790,000 people

for a storm that was much less intense than Katrina.

[goodhue]

50. kick