Thursday, September 23, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 5
World
Beijing closed to prepare for festivities
Oct.1 celebrations will mark 50 years of communist rule
BEIJING — Authorities closed streets and shops, commandered restaurants and roped off sidewalks yesterday, effectively shutting down China's capital for rehearsals of upcoming celebrations to mark 50 years of communist rule.
The martial law-style controls are just one reminder that however China has changed, Big Brother still calls the shots.
The heart of the city — areas near the old imperial palace, the Forbidden City and around Tiananmen Square — was closed to all vehicles and pedestrian traffic from before 8 a.m. yesterday.
By midmorning, police had cordoned off the city's main east-west thoroughfare, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, to allow parade floats, tanks and trucks loaded with missiles and other armaments to
Many government and business workers were given the day off or told to go home early. With the streets closed, many buses were not running.
pass through.
"How are we going to home?" asked one bemused cyclist. "It's a 20 kilometer (12 mile) ride around the roadblocks."
Sidewalks were roped off about 30 yards back, preventing residents from getting more than a distant preview of the parade that will travel down the wide boulevard to Tianamen Square on Oct. 1.
"No use talking to us, we're just enforcing the law," replied a policeman joking around with his colleagues during a break.
Several times in the past few weeks, Beijing's streets have been cordoned off for partial rehearsals that ran from twilight into the wee hours of the morning, reducing the inconvenience to city residents.
But this all-day interruption caused many shops and offices in the city center to shut down. The Beijing Friendship Store, which sits along the parade route, was virtually deserted by midmorning.
Richard Bachman/KANSAN
One popular pizza shop, though, was used as a rest stop for the thousands of armed police who stood guard along the cordon.
Local businesses must swallow the losses. No price seems to be too high for the communist authorities as they mark a half-century in power. Officials have declined to say how much the entire holiday will cost the government.
The restrictions were loosened briefly after the tanks rumbled through and were to be fully lifted
after rehearsals ended late last night.
City officials are determined to have clear skies on Oct. 1. During the 1984 National Day celebrations, spectators were unable to see military jets streaking above Tiananmen Square due to thick smog. To keep that from happening again, Capital Iron and Steel and 24 other heavily polluting factories were ordered to cut production.
"We're trying to help people in Beijing enjoy clear blue skies," said vice mayor Wang Guangtao in an article in the China Daily newspaper. "For many years, serious air pollution seemed to pack the city into a stifling gray box. Many people felt uncomfortable and sick."
Cleared by a brisk autumn breeze, the skies were a brighter blue than usual on Wednesday.
The controls, announced Tuesday in local newspapers, caused some grumbling, but there is no room for public protest. "All members of the public and work units please understand, support and respectfully comply," said a police notice posted in the entirely controlled media.
Taiwan quake survivors criticize rescue attempts
The Associated Press
TUNGSHIH. Taiwan—In hushed voices, people talked about victims crying through the night, beneath the hulk of fallen concrete and brick that was once a 14-story apartment building.
Tuesday's quake, which was followed yesterday by three strong aftershocks, killed 2,003 people, injured 4,400 and left 100,000 homeless, the Disaster Management Center said.
By yesterday, the second day of Taiwan's earthquake disaster, the moans and pleas for help were fading away, one by one. Neighbors were full of grief and anger, saying more should have been done to dig out their friends and families.
About 500 emergency workers from 14 countries arrived to help out, but yesterday's search efforts resulted in only nine rescues of the estimated 2,600 people still trapped in crushed buildings.
"There was a voice yesterday. It was my son's girlfriend, who was with him, crying out for her
His arms crossed tightly on his chest, Chou Jing-jum frantically told anyone who would listen that his son had been left to die under the debris.
father," Chou said again and again. He was too consumed with agony to say what his son's name was.
"Nobody came to dig them out," Chou finally said.
Chou had tried to dig his son out and had gotten so far into the wreckage that he found some business cards from his son's room. But emergency workers stopped him from going in deeper, fearful he would be buried by aftershocks.
Whispering, so as not to upset neighbors standing nearby who have missing family members, several others described how an unidentified, trapped woman continued to cry into the early morning hours yesterday but had stopped by daylight.
A large crowd spent much of the day staring at the top of buildings that had fallen and completely blocked off the street, once a lively strip of noodle stands, convenience stores and other small shops.
Nearby, scores of rescue volunteers and soldiers chatted idly, waiting for the tools and expertise they said they would need to uncover those buried under tons of unstable slabs of building material.
Between 20 and 30 people were trapped in the
building, officials and neighbors said.
Chou's complaints were echoed by other residents, who said although hundreds of volunteer firefighters and other rescue workers from distant counties had arrived, local leaders had failed to provide the direction, leadership or authority needed to direct the rescuers in high-risk search operations.
"What angeres me is that no one seems to be in charge," said one man, Hsieh Mao-ming. "There's no boss. They keep sending different people."
Sitting at a cafeteria table set up at a makeshift sidewalk command post several blocks away, a Talchung County civil defense official, Suo Jiaju, said he sympathized with those who were angered by the slow pace of the rescue efforts.
But Suo said the magnitude-7.6 earthquake, Taiwan's deadliest in nearly 65 years, had been so massive that adequate preparation just wasn't possible.
"The earthquake was huge," Suo said as workers around him stacked up towers of donated boxes of food and soybean milk.
"There's no way we could ever have prepared for anything like this. And now, we just can't go rushing into buildings willy-nilly. A meeting is going on right now to plan the next steps."
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ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE CAREER FAIR - STUDENT
UNION, 6TH FLOOR BALLROOM
SOME JUST DO IT BETTER THAN OTHERS
SEPTEMBER 28TH,1999
FOE MEDIV
EOE - M/F/D/V
TELLABS, A NEW BREED OF CAREERS
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PRESENTED IN MEMORY OF CHARLES "BUDY" ROGERS
Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin
November 12, 13, 14* and 18, 19**, 20, 199
Schoolhouse Rock Live! by Scott Ferguson, Kyle Hall and George Keating (co-produced by the Seem-ToBe Players) October 8, 9, 15, 16, $^{17}$ *&* 21, $^{22**}$, 23, 1999
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Nicholas Rudall
Match 3, A, 4 & 9, *10*, *11*, *12* *200*
UNIVERSITY THEATRE SERIES (76TH SEASON)
Henry IV, Part 1, by William Shakespeare
April 14, 15, 16* & 20, 21*, 22, 2000
Schoolhouse Rock by Scott Ferguson, Kyle Hall and George Keating (co-produced by the Seem-To-Be Players) October 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 1999 (1:00 p.m. school performances)
KU THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen, adapted by Pamela Sterling, music & lyrics by Chris Limber February 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 2000 (7:00 p.m. school performances) Saturday, February 12, 2000 (7:00 p.m. public performance)
ALL PERFORMANCES ARE IN THE CRAFTON-PREYER THEATRE
INGE THEATRE SERIES
Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
October 28, 29, 30, 31 & November 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1999
The Suicide by Nikolai Erdman, translated by Peter Tegel November 29, 30, December 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1999
*Fen* by Caryl Churchill February 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 2000
Pot-Pourri Productions
March 31 & April 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2000
PERFORMANCES ARE IN THE WILLIAM INGE MEMORIAL THEATRE