something to ease the weekday pain
Chinese Give Skeptical Welcome to Singapore
Rescuers
Posted on Sunday, May 18,
2008
Topic: International News
by Nyonya Kway
The Chinese government has given a skeptical welcome to a
Singaporean disaster and rescue team arriving in Chengdu to help
find survivors of the recent earthquake.
“We welcome everybody who wants to help,” said Mr. Da Dizhen, the
deputy mayor of Shifang in Sichuan province. “But of course, we
don’t dare to get our hopes up.”
“I mean, we’re very grateful to the Singaporean team,” he
explained, “but if the whole of Singapore still cannot find one guy
who escaped from a toilet cubicle into a country only 672 sq. km.
in area, we really don’t think a small team can find thousands of
people buried under tonnes of rubble in a city of over 12,000 sq.
km in time.”
However, Major Tao Kah Chew, a spokesman for the SAF’s Disaster,
Rescue and Assistance Team (DRAT), pledged that the Singapore team
would do their best.
“Obviously, it’s a complicated job,” he said. “And we might not
succeed in the mission. But I want to reassure everybody that in
the event of failure, no Ministers will resign. That's what's
really important in the end”
In addition to an array of high tech equipment, special vehicles
and four specially-trained sniffer dogs, the team has also brought
along a State’s Times journalist to ensure that only good things
are reported back home.
