Five Buried Korean Students Rescued

The five South Korean students traveling through Sichuan, China who went missing shortly after the earthquake were rescued on May 16. They were buried for a time after the quake, and one of them was injured.

The Korean consulate said, “Baek Jun-ho and four other students studying at the Tianjin Foreign Language Studies University were discovered in Wolong, not far from Wenchuan, the epicenter of the disaster.”

The Korean students were in Wolong when the earthquake struck, and one of them, Ahn Hyeong-jun, injured his leg during the quake. Talking to families and relatives on the telephone, they said, “We were buried when the disaster happened.”

The Korean consulate in Chengdu said, “We’ll bring them to Chengdu within today (May 16) if possible, and send them back to Korea on May 17.”

Meanwhile, the National Emergency Management Agency announced on May 16 that it plans to dispatch a 119 International Rescue Team to China to aid the search and rescue operation in the quake-stricken area.

The team will consist of 41 rescue workers all of whom have over five years of experience. In addition, the operation will utilize 337 high-tech devices of 108 types, including two trained dogs and human sensors which detect where people are buried with radio waves.

On May 16, the 4th day after the earthquake, Sichuan Province estimated the death toll to be 210,000. At 1:25 p.m. on the same day, an aftershock measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hit Lixian, Sichuan Province, destroying already cracked buildings and filling residents with even more horror.

bonhong@donga.com jin0619@donga.com