Disasters

Nearly a week after a cyclone ravaged Myanmar, food, medicine and fresh drinking water are not the only necessities in short supply. So are independent news accounts from the isolated and politically repressive nation. Expatriates and others have been forced to rely mostly on secondhand accounts and reports from correspondents based in neighboring nations for information about the disaster, which the government says has killed more than 22,000 people.

The tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest and South over the weekend killed about two dozen people, officials said Monday, making 2008 the deadliest year so far for twisters in a decade. According to the National Weather Service, 96 people have lost their lives in a year that has seen an unusual number of storms. In 1998, 115 had perished by May 11.

Rescue workers facing a rising death toll and heavy rains Tuesday dug for survivors of China's worst earthquake in decades, as people throughout the country searched for loved ones, medical help, water and food. At Zhu Renmin Hospital in Mianzhu, where thousands of dead and severely injured people filled a parking lot, police and government workers arrived early in the day to help move patients to the provincial capital, Chengdu, and hospitals elsewhere in the area.

On television screens around the world, images of protesting Tibetan monks and an Olympic torch doused by protesters have been replaced by footage of Chinese rescuers pulling children out of the wreckage of this week's massive earthquake. The country is in pain and mourning. But the tragedy that struck Monday, and has taken more than 12,000 lives, also has given China an opportunity for a dramatic image makeover.

The fiery dishes spiked with Sichuan peppercorns began arriving on the table, but Tang Xiulan and her friends remained transfixed by a television screen above the restaurant's front door showing images of rescue efforts in their home province. The past week has provided the most they had seen or heard of Sichuan since they immigrated to the United States -- some a decade ago or more. Unlike Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, the cities of Sichuan are largely unheralded overseas.

In a system with a centuries-long tradition of austere leaders laying down the law from behind their palace walls, China's response to its worst natural disaster in three decades has revealed a nation in the throes of political change. The China that emerged from the wreckage of Monday's magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Sichuan province looked surprisingly modern, flexible and if not democratic, at least open.

Images run through my mind when I'm brave enough to let them in like the click-click of an old slide projector. The body of the security guard five days after the quake, his keys still on his belt, his uniform and badge struggling to lend some dignity to his bloated corpse. The body of the student, a boy slightly older than my son, his sneakers battered, his shirttail out. Like most people, I move through life clinging to a few assumptions that give me a modest sense of control.

Most schools reopened Monday in and around Yangon, despite the concerns of some teachers, parents and international aid groups about safety risks to students from damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Nargis. At Middle School No. 1 in this suburb, classes resumed in a building where strips of rusted corrugated iron roofing hung precariously overhead.

The toll rose Sunday to at least 57 people dead and eight missing as pounding weekend rains flooded wide areas of southern China and added to the misery of a nation already racked by natural disasters this year. More rain is forecast over the next 10 days, and authorities were concerned about a 130-foot-long crack in an embankment of the Xi River, a major tributary of the Pearl River. The opening put at risk the nearby city of Wuzhou, population 3 million.

One month after a massive earthquake killed nearly 70,000 people, some of the effects of the crisis may hardly outlast the rubble, even as other seismic shifts irrevocably shake the Chinese government and society. The cooperative response of local government officials to the quake will probably be short-lived, analysts said, as corruption and a sense of entitlement resurge just as billions of dollars flow into Sichuan province for reconstruction.