The Quakes Keep Coming

China's tectonic plates still aren't finished rumbling.

From AFP:

BEIJING (AFP) — China deployed more than 8,000 soldiers and military reservists to help search and rescue efforts in the southwest Monday after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake that left 40 people dead, state press said.

The weekend quake, in a mountainous region spanning the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, destroyed or damaged more than 392,000 homes and injured nearly 675 people, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Xinhua was quoting figures announced by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The China News Services said earlier Monday the military were rushed to the scene to beef up search and rescue efforts as more people were being located and pulled out from the rubble.

Some 2,000 troops, police and firefighters already in the area have rescued more than 130 injured victims from collapsed buildings since the quake struck on Saturday afternoon, it added.

Read On

Sichuan cannot catch a break this summer. So sad.

Jackie told me an interesting story the other day regarding the Sichuan earthquake in May and this summer's Olympic Games. A parent of one of her students told her that China's Olympic medal count had an unbelievable connection to the Sichuan earthquakes.

China won 51 gold medals, 21 silver medals, and 28 bronze medals. Now if you put those numbers together, you get 512128. Now if you manipulate that a bit, you get 5/12, 1:28. The parent told Jackie that this is the exact moment that the Sichuan earthquake hit this past May - May 12th at 1:28PM.

I was pretty shocked by this. What a truly incredible coincidence?!

I then told a friend of mine here in Xi'an this story. He responded, "No f'ing way!" We were at a computer and then Googled these numbers to check its validity.

The Olympic medal count for China was indeed correct.

We then checked out when exactly the Sichuan earthquake hit. I knew that it was May 12th. I then thought about the time: 1:28PM. After a quick search, we saw that the earthquake did not hit at 1:28PM China time. It hit at 2:28PM China time.

Disappointed, my friend and I agreed that this amazing coincidence, it turns out, it not that amazing. Still pretty interesting though.

If only one more Chinese man or woman could've won another silver medal! This would've been a truly great tribute/inspiration to the number obsessed and superstitious country that is China.