We think they lived but for many other families around here it is time to deal with death and more death in the villages and towns that they know, where many of them grew up.”At the brightly painted Willesden temple, itself under the spiritual control of one of Bhuj’s main temples, the effort was towards helping those who had emerged alive.More than 60 tons of clothing and blankets has been piled from floor to ceiling in the underground car park. Yesterday, a small army of volunteers were helping to package and load the aid on to lorries.Urgent material, including donated medicines and blankets for the hundreds of thousands sleeping outside, will be sent on flights provided by Air India, British Airways and Lufthansa. The remainder will be sent by sea.Money is also pouring in to the proliferation of emergency funds. One Wembley community organisation, the Shree Kutch Leva Patel, which is drawn from 24 villages around Bhuj, has raised £200,000 since the weekend.But as the aid poured in, amid criticism from some that thousands of jumpers will do nothing to rebuild shattered homes, the struggle for any nugget of information continued. Community groups have harnessed modern technology – from mobile phone text messages to internet bulletin boards – to spread what little information has emerged. Shopkeepers have reported a five-fold increase in the sale of phone cards for cheap international calls.The earthquake struck at a time when thousands of British-Indians were in the region.
At least 5,000 UK residents or UK citizens are feared missing, injured or dead.Kanji Hirani, 37, a City computer manager whose parents Parabat and Ratanbai, both 64, had returned to their native village, Mirzapur near Bhuj, said: “Communications have been non-existent I finally found out my parents were alive on Sunday night My aunt was killed, buried in the rubble that was her house. Her sister lives opposite and yet she emerged unscathed.”Underlying the communal effort, however, was a sense that the British Government, which has pledged £10m towards helping Gujarat recover, is not doing enough.Jagdish Patel, the chairman of the Brent Indian Association, a community body based on Ealing Road, said: “Millions of Indians have come to this country, raised their families and paid their taxes. There is anger that the Government here isn’t giving more financial aid.”The suspicion that the reaction of the British authorities has been, if not institutionally racist then certainly lethargic, was yesterday widely shared among north-west London’s Gujaratis.. The Chinese government stepped up its media campaign yesterday to validate an 18-month crackdown against the Falun Gong movement. The Chinese government stepped up its media campaign yesterday to validate an 18-month crackdown against the Falun Gong movement.
With graphic footage and descriptions of the attempted suicide by five adherents who set themselves alight in Tiananmen Square last week, state television and news agencies portrayed the would-be martyrs as “obsessive” members of an “evil cult”.The first public descriptions of the self-immolations – which numbered seven according to the official version – came in reaction to the spiritual sect’s extreme step.Li Chunling, the one follower who died on the square because of her burns, was shown to have persuaded her daughter, Liu Siying, to join the attempt to reach paradise, a world “with gold everywhere and the road to the paradise is also built with gold”.”Why gold is everywhere there?” a nurse asked the 12- year-old on her hospital bed while a reporter from the Xinhua news agency taped the conversation.
“My uncles and aunts practising Falun Gong told me.”"Are you sure that you could reach that world?”"I’ve not thought of the question. It depends on how hard I practise the Falun Gong,” replied the girl, who suffered severe burns to her face, head and hands. The girl, from Henan, a hotbed of alternative faiths, now faces losing all her fingers.”Didn’t you know using a lighter to set fire to yourself would hurt?” state TV showed a nurse asking the girl.”My Mum cheated me,” Liu Siying said. The little girl has not yet been informed of her mother’s death in the suicide attempts.”Mum, uncle, help me,” the little girl cried as she caught fire on the square, according to Xinhua.One of the demonstrators who was stopped from carrying out the suicide protest, Liu Baorong, said that they chose Tiananmen Square because there was a rumour that an old woman practitioner in northeast China saw in her dream the words “registration for Dafa (Falun Gong) followers” written on the Tiananmen Rostrum. In fact it says long life to the Chinese Communist Party.”Falun Dafa is compulsory to all,” the man was screaming.Chinese society frowns upon suicide.