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WORLD NEWSTuesday 9 February 2016

Chinese visit temples, fairs to ring in Year of the Monkey

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese Performers participate in a lion dance at Ditan Park to mark the first day of Chinese Lunar New Chinese prayed in Jakar-
and others around Asia Year in Beijing, Monday, Feb. 8, 2016. Millions of Chinese began celebrating the Lunar New Year, ta, and the Sydney Opera
flocked to temples and fairs which marks the Year of the Monkey on the Chinese zodiac. House was lit red.
to pray for good health and
fortune on Monday, the first (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Travel agent Meng Su was
day of the Lunar New Year. lining up to burn incense
In Beijing, hundreds of thou- country’s most important Dancers dressed in lion crowds in Manila’s China- at the Tibetan Buddhist
sands of people visited tra- Lama Temple in central
ditional fairs held in parks, holiday. costumes entertained the town, Indonesia’s ethnic Beijing, which is regarded
as well as Buddhist and Tao- as a popular tradition that
ist temples offering singing brings good luck to those
and dance performances praying.
and open-air markets sell- “Chinese people revere
ing handicrafts. Ethnic Chi- the power of nature and
nese people in other coun- believe in gods, so we
tries celebrated the holiday hope to express our bless-
as well. ings and that the gods can
hear us,” said Meng, 39.
Monday marks the first day “It’s also a way for us to find
of the Year of the Monkey some comfort.”
— the ninth animal on the Another Beijing resident,
Chinese zodiac calendar. Yan Xiaying, 29, said her
The weeklong holiday, mother had a clear target
known as the Spring Fes- as the pair visited the tem-
tival in China, is focused ple.
on family reunion and is a “I guess my mother hopes
time when students and that I get married soon,”
migrant workers return to Yan said, with her mother
their hometowns. It is the agreeing.q

Survivors pulled out from building days after Taiwan quake

GLADYS TSAI all but two of them in the “Here I am” as rescuers changed words with the the latest information.
Associated Press collapse of the 17-story dug through to find her, Tai- girl, Lin Su-chin. “Does that mean we are
TAINAN, Taiwan (AP) — At building. Even though the wan’s Eastern Broadcast- “She is awake, but looks here to wait for bodies?”
least four people, includ- 6.4-magnitude quake was ing Corp. reported. dehydrated, lost some tem- grandfather Liu Meng-hsun
ing an 8-year-old girl, were shallow, few buildings were She was found under the perature but she’s awake cried out angrily.
rescued Monday from a reported to have been body of her husband, who and her blood pressure is Outside, a woman stood
high-rise Taiwanese apart- damaged, which experts had shielded her from a OK,” he said. at the edge of the rubble
ment building toppled by said was because Taiwan’s collapsed beam, the gov- Shortly afterward, rescue shouting,
a powerful quake two days building standards are high. ernment-run Central News workers also pulled out a “Your grandma is here!”
earlier, as frustration grew Authorities have managed Agency reported. Tsao’s 28-year-old Vietnamese Rescuers had detected
among families waiting for to rescue more than 170 husband and 2-year-son woman, identified as Chen life within the area where
searchers to reach their people — the vast major- were found dead, and five Mei-jih, who had been the 16th-floor apartment of
buried loved ones. ity in the immediate hours other members of the fam- trapped on what was the her son and his family was
More than 100 people are after the quake — from the ily remained unaccounted building’s fifth floor. thought to be, and were
believed to still be under folded building using infor- for, it said. Family members of the said to have heard the
the debris in a disaster that mation about the building Teams also rescued on missing flooded into the in- sound of a child.
struck during the most im- layout and the possible lo- Monday a 42-year-old man formation center in search Her son, surnamed Wu, got
portant family holiday in cation of those trapped. from the building, and, of their loved ones or to out of the building soon af-
the Chinese calendar — Five survivors were believed later, an 8-year-old girl, wait anxiously. ter the quake, but his wife
the Lunar New Year. to have been pulled out on who had been trapped for Tensions rose as some rela- and their 4-year-old girl re-
Saturday’s quake killed at Sunday, and at least four more than 61 hours. tives, losing patience, de- mained trapped, accord-
least 38 people in Tainan on Monday. One of them, Mayor Lai Ching-Te told manded to speak to res- ing to volunteers assisting
city in southern Taiwan, Tsao Wei-ling, called out reporters he briefly ex- cue workers directly to get the family.q