Zhouqu victims mourned at Expo

• Source: Global Times
• [08:27 August 16 2010]
• Comments

Among the visitors at the service were Yu Wenguang and his 13-year-old daughter; the pair decided to skip the line up for the Taiwan Pavilion as previ-ously planned.

"We heard that there was going to be a memorial ceremony here today," Yu, who hails from Zhejiang Province, told the Global Times yesterday. "We really wanted to see the Taiwan Pavilion, but more than that I wanted my daughter to learn how precious life is - that we have to cherish every moment of our lives and make more contributions to the world while we can."

Meanwhile, the Equatorial Guinea Pavilion postponed its national pavilion day from yesterday until today, in accor-dance with the national day of mourning declared earlier by officials.

Pakistan also cancelled its national pavilion day celebrations over the week-end on Saturday to mourn victims back home, some 1,600 people who have died in the floods that have ravaged the country since late July.

Local newspapers printed in black-and-white while the majority of televi-sion programming was yesterday dedi-cated to the Zhouqu tragedy as staff at charitable centers were kept busy an-swering the phones, scribbling down do-nations from generous folks in the city.

The city has so far sent an estimated 5 million yuan ($736,000) to the strick-en area, according to the Red Cross in Shanghai.

"We haven't yet accurately calculated the figure for how much Shanghai resi-dents have given to the cause," a public affairs officer surnamed Wang, who de-clined to provide his full name, from the Red Cross in Shanghai, told the Global Times yesterday. "Though we have yet to fully assess the situation, quilts, tents and medicines are always needed in natural disasters, and we encourage resi-dents to give whatever they can."

For more details on donating through the Red Cross in Shanghai, residents can log onto redcross-sha.org, added Wang