How the Chinese Media Reported Two Major Accidents

(Clearwisdom.net) Note: The government-controlled media in China tends to conceal large-scale disasters; they often report them as if nothing important happened and cover up the facts. But when reporting a specific case of "murder" (by poisoning) in Zhejiang Province, the media exaggerated the case and framed a Falun Gong practitioner for the deaths. The Chinese media have sunk to such a degree. Those who committed these crimes in distorting the facts should be punished according to the law.

According to China Youth: On 22:15, December 23, 2003, a gas well, Luojia 16H, in the Chuandong Beiqi Mine near Huangniyakou, in Xiaoyang Village, Kaixiaogaoqiao County, Chongqing City, had a blowout during drilling.

The mine is owned by the Southwest Oil and Gas Subsidiary. Natural gas mixed with hydrogen sulfide shot up 30 meters into the air. The gas mixture quickly spread toward several counties nearby: Gaoqiao, Zhengba, and Maliu. By 18:40, December 25, 191 people were reported dead and several hundred were injured to various degrees.

Several days later, the casualties had reached 233. More than ten thousand people were urgently evacuated.

The local media didn't report a single word on this disaster. In attempting to cover up the seriousness of the incident, the local government reported only 8 deaths and said that the situation was under control. As the State Department and out-of-province media became involved in the story, the death toll quickly escalated on December 25.

The official media didn't mention the cover-up of the death toll by the local government, and instead praised the leadership of the National Security Surveillance Bureau by saying that the rescue work was "methodically" launched and that "people's moods were stable, social order was good, and the mountain was once again quiet."

The lives of 233 people had disappeared in an instant; but the media reported on the story with an upbeat writing style to write off this human tragedy. What actually occurred was that poisonous gas spread widely, deaths occurred everywhere, 90 percent of the residents within 5 square kilometers died, some families suffered total loss, and many children were among the casualties.

I also cannot help but remember what happened on the Yantai beach four years ago.

In the winter of 1999, two cargo ships belonging to the same company sank in the Bohai Sea within 40 days of each other. A fishing boat that happened to be nearby rescued people on the Chenglu, one of the two ships. Only two people were lost. The other ship, Dashun, wasn't so lucky. After the SOS signal was sent and received by the Navy, Navy Warship No. 686 arrived at the scene two and a half hours later, when Dashun began to overturn. Based on some reports, owing to the high wind and waves, the rescue ship couldn't come near the sinking ship, causing some rescue efforts to be scrubbed. Why hadn't any helicopters or lifeboats been used to rescue the Dashun during the seven hours before it sank? Many questions were left unanswered in people's minds. Nobody could come up with a logical explanation. More than 200 lives from the Dashun disappeared forever in the icy water, only 1,500 meters from shore.

As reported, two days after the Dashun tragedy, a Norwegian ocean-faring ship wrecked near the western coast of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Due to a hurricane, it sank in an hour. Within one hour, twenty-odd lifeboats and a helicopter came to the rescue. Out of 88 passengers 67 were rescued. Ten days later, a sea accident occurred in the Philippines, but due to rescue efforts, only two people disappeared out of more than 100 passengers.

Many of us will remember the "Titanic" accident 87 years ago, and how even in the middle of the icy Atlantic Ocean, more than 700 passengers were rescued. The rescue ratio was one third of the passengers.

As we look back at Dashun, the place where the boat sank was only 1,500 meters from shore, yet there were only 22 survivors, less than ten percent of the total passengers.

After the accident, the media reported on some of the rescue efforts and the search for bodies, but nothing about investigating the cause of the accident, the placement of responsibility, or the handling of the rescue efforts during the aftermath of the initial accident. For a long time no official would step out to share the responsibility for those more than 200 people. The grief and pain of those 200-plus families were being forgotten. The right to know of more than one billion citizens was ignored. It is inconceivable in other parts of the world that this could happen. On June 8, 1998, a derailed train left more than 100 dead in Germany. The very next day, the flag was lowered to express sorrow. However for the Dashun accident, more than 200 lives disappeared, as if blown away by the wind without a trace. Our national flag law states that when major casualties are caused by a disaster, the flag should be lowered to express grief. Seeing what happened with the Dashun, aren't the lives of ordinary people worth anything?

Another four years passed, and the 200 lives that were lost are still not accounted for. The government is still ineffective, the media is still shameless, and the flag is still flying.

But the red color of our flag reminds me of the more than 200 souls in the bloody pool.

From these two accidents, I sense the assertion of a historian, that, "Corruption and incompetence are a pair of devils fitted in a trouser." It not only swallows several hundreds lives, but also the beliefs of 1.3 billion people.

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