World
Italy quake death toll rises to 247
Rome : The death toll in the devastating 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck central Italy’s mountainous region has risen to at least 247 even as thousands of rescuers continued efforts to find survivors.
Dozens were believed trapped beneath debris in the ruined towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto which were levelled to the during the catastrophe on August 24.
Search parties scavenged through rubble and building debri through the night, even as a strong aftershock rocked already damaged buildings, BBC reported.
Many of the victims were children, Italy’s Health Minister said, and there were warnings the toll could rise further.
Late on Wednesday, there were cheers in the village of Pescara del Tronto when a 4-year-old girl Giorgia Rinaldo was pulled alive from the rubble after being trapped for 17 hours.
The little girl’s sister was found moments later, but she was dead.
Nearby, two girls and their grandmother were pulled from the rubble, but they had also tragically died, the Mirror reported.
At least 4,300 rescuers were roped in by the Italian authorities to continue efforts to find the missing. The rescuers used heavy lifting equipment and their bare hands to exhume bodies and rescue victims.
Rescuers said they pulled five bodies from the ruins of the Hotel Roma in the historic town of Amatrice. At least 70 tourists were staying at the hotel when the quake struck. Many were feared to be in the rubble, though several were pulled out and offered medical attention.
The quake struck small towns and villages in the mountainous area where the regions of Umbria, Lazio and Le Marche meet.
People spent the night outside or in tents provided by the emergency services.
Popular British singer Lily Allen who was on holiday in Umbria, where the earthquake hit near the town of Norcia — a favoured tourist destination — confirmed that she was safe, after leaving a family holiday in Italy early, the Independent reported.
Among the victims was an 18-month-old toddler, Marisol Piermarini, whose mother Martina Turco survived the deadly April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila and had moved away from there after the experience, Ansa reported.
Turco was being treated in hospital after being pulled from the rubble in the village of Arquata del Tronto.
Despite a massive rescue and relief effort — with army, Alpine crews, carabineri, firefighters, Red Cross crews and volunteers, it wasn’t enough: A few miles north of Amatrice, in Illica, residents complained that rescue workers were slow to arrive and that loved ones were trapped beneath ruins, the Independent reported.
“We are waiting for the military,” said a victim Alessandra Cappellanti, adding, “there is a base in Ascoli, one in Rieti, and in L’Aquila. And we have not seen a single soldier. We pay! It’s disgusting!”
Secretary General of the Italian Red Cross Flavio Ronzi said there was still hope to find people alive.
“We are still finding some survivors because there is still some time, we can still find someone alive but of course hour by hour it’s going to be more difficult and with less possibilities,” the BBC quoted Ronzi as saying.
The Italian branch of the Red Cross sent at least 20 ambulances and sniffer dogs to affected areas alongside the Italian Defence Ministry on Wednesday.
Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.
Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai
Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.
Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.
Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.
WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.
Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.
Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy
Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.
The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.
Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.
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