Animal survivors - tales of dogs, pigs and clones

Here’s a strong contender for this year’s most bizarre disaster story.     Chinese scientists have cloned a wonder pig that survived the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, which killed more than 90,000 people.

 Zhu Jiangqiang, or "Strong-Willed Pig", survived in his sty under the rubble for 36 days on a diet of charcoal and rainwater.    Scientists in the city of Shenzhen have cloned six piglets from his DNA.    They are all said to look like him, with a distinctive birthmark between the eyes.   It’s planned to send them off to a museum and a genetic institute.

During the Japanese tsunami in March, as the owners of a pet dachshund prepared to seek safety in the hills inland, the terrified dog raced off towards the sea.    They were heart-broken and assumed that was the last they would see of him.

But a week later, he was found safe a mile inland.   How did he survive?    No one knows.

More floods in China

Floods are said to be the most common natural disaster to afflict mankind, and China has suffered many, including perhaps the deadliest natural disaster in history.  (See my blog of June 20.)

Now a week of heavy rain has brought the deaths of at least 57 people and driven a million from their homes.    The flooding in Sichuan is the worst since records began in 1847, and the provinces of Henan and Shaanxi have also been hit.

More than 120,000 houses have been destroyed, along with many crops.   Many of those who died were in a brick factory and the dormitory for its workers that were buried by a landslide in the city of Xi’an.

Last year’s floods were the worst in China for a decade, and cost 4,000 lives, while so far this year more than 350 people have been killed in 12 provinces.

China - land of disasters

At least 400 people have been killed in an earthquake that has struck the remote area of Yushu in China’s western Qinghai province. The quake measured 6.9, compared with 7.0 in Haiti and 8.8 in Chile in February.

Nearly every building in the town of Jiegu is said to have been destroyed. Many Tibetans live in the area, and the relief effort is being hampered by landslides that have blocked roads.

China’s worst earthquake in recent years was the one that struck Sichuan in 2008 killing 87,000, but it is truly a country of disasters. Probably the deadliest earthquake the world has ever seen killed 830,000 people in Shaanxi province in 1556, while China also suffered the worst floods in history, with the Yellow River killing up to 2.5 million when it burst its banks in 1889, and the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers accounting for perhaps 3 million in 1931.

More than 1,540 miners perished in the world’s worst mining disaster at Honkeiko in 1942, while in the late 1870’s up to 13 million people died in one of the country's regular famines. The great hunger of 1959-61, hugely aggravated by Chairman Mao’s doctrinaire policies, brought a death toll of perhaps 40 million, while an estimated 36 million were killed in the An Lushan rebellion of the 8th century. For more details on all these stories, see A Disastrous History of the World.

(See also my blogs of Jan 10, Feb 22, March 27, May 11, July 28, Nov 19 and 23, 2009, Jan 15 and 22, Feb 9 and 15, 2010.)

China - secret disasters

In China an activist who has been investigating the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 has been jailed for five years for inciting subversion. Although the charges against Tan Zuoren did not formally relate to his investigation, human rights groups claim they were the real reason for the prosecution.

He was arrested while preparing a report into the collapse of school buildings during the quake. In many areas, schools seemed to have fared worse than neighbouring buildings, and parents alleged that corruption had led to poor building standards. Altogether 80,000 people died.

A Hong Kong television crew was prevented from attending Tan Zuoren’s trial, and had their hotel room searched for alleged possession of drugs.

China has a record of secrecy in the aftermath of disasters. After the great Tangshan quake of 1976 it took two years for the authorities to announce that 242,000 had been killed, and many still believe the true number was much higher, while details of the Henan floods of 1975 – caused by shoddily built dams – were suppressed for nearly 30 years. Human rights groups believe that more than 200,000 people died.

Haiti relief effort

The United Nations says that member states have pledged £165 million for the relief effort in Haiti. Correspondents in the country, though, report that there’s little sign of help reaching the stricken areas. In one place, survivors seem to have built a pile of dead bodies as a protest.

The UN’s World Food Programme says two million people need feeding, but so far it has managed to reach just 4,000. Because of fuel shortages, Port-au-Prince’s small airport is clogged with stranded aircraft, the port is too badly damaged to use, and roads are blocked by debris.

If the estimate of around 50,000 dead is correct, this would make it the deadliest earthquake since May 2008, when up to 87,000 perished in Sichuan in south-west China. That one measured 7.8 compared with the 7 recorded in Haiti.

The other most devastating quake of the century so far was the 7.6 disaster that hit northern Pakistan in 2005, causing 73,000 deaths, while of course, it was a massive 9.2 undersea earthquake that caused the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, which accounted for around 230,000 people.

* Estonian readers of this blog may wish to know that my book A Disastrous History of the World is now available in their language as Maailma Katastroofide Ajalugu, published by Sinisukk.