A disaster declared inside a day.

The magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck Sichuan on 12 May 2008 killed roughly 69,000 people and left tens of thousands more missing. It is not this site's first case of a Chinese earthquake and an American response, because it is not clear there was a first one. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed an estimated 242,000 people during the Cultural Revolution, drew no American relief at all. China's government declined outside assistance, and none was sent.

Sichuan, thirty-two years later, was different. US Ambassador Clark T. Randt Jr. declared a disaster on 13 May, one day after the quake. USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance contributed $500,000 through the US Embassy in Beijing, routed to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for emergency supplies. The US Air Force followed with C-17 transports carrying tents, food, blankets and generators into Chengdu.

What separates this case from Tangshan is not the scale of the American response, which was modest next to the private $10 million the American Red Cross alone pledged. It is that China let it happen, and the United States moved within a day of being allowed to.

Sources: USAID China Earthquake Fact Sheet No. 1, FY2008; US Army/American Forces Press Service, 18 May 2008. The final cumulative USAID figure for the full relief operation could not be confirmed from the sources available for this draft and should be checked against USAID's closing FY2008 fact sheet before this entry is treated as complete.