The focus in Asia is now on the earthquake that killed untold thousands in China this week. It's worth pausing for a moment to consider how that country's biggest quake in 58 years offers a reason for optimism. The contrast between China's impressive relief efforts and Myanmar's shameful failure to allow the rapid delivery of international aid after this month's cyclone is as huge as it is telling. And China's response differs markedly from how it dealt with an earthquake that killed 250,000 people in 1976 in the northeastern city of Tangshan.

China's main centers for designing, making and storing nuclear arms lie in the shattered earthquake zone, leading Western experts to look for signs of any damage that might allow radioactivity to escape. A senior federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue, said the United States was using spy satellites and other means to try to monitor the sprawling nuclear plants. "There appear to be no immediate concerns," the official said.

CHENGDU, China: Can earthquakes be predicted, their destructive impact forewarned? Most scientists would say no. But if some insistent Chinese bloggers are to be believed, nature provided enough warning to have saved many of those who perished this week. In the days before the deadly earthquake shook much of mountainous Sichuan Province, their stories go, ponds inexplicably drained, cows flung themselves against their enclosures and swarms of toads invaded the streets of a town that was later devastated by the quake.

BANGKOK: At risk of disease, abuse and forced recruitment into the armed forces, children are the most vulnerable survivors of the cyclone that hit Myanmar, many of them orphaned or lost, fending for themselves.

BEIJING: Four days after a powerful earthquake devastated a mountainous region of southwestern China, the nation's massive rescue and relief effort continued Friday, even though the hope of finding new survivors was dimming. Remarkably, relief officials said that they had rescued a child buried alive in the ruins of a middle school late Thursday, about 80 hours after the quake struck, and had also detected the sounds of several other children who could be trapped there.

WITH the advent of the monsoon around the corner, Thane Municipal Corporation has undertaken a slew of measures to brace up for the likely deluge. The TMC has been granted permission by the district authorities in view of the model code of conduct in the wake of the by polls to the Thane parliamentary seat to carry out essential public works to brace up for the forthcoming monsoons.

IN a statement reminiscent of US President George Bush's remark that India's middle class was responsible for the global food crisis, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said that Mumbai's burgeoning population is responsible for the flooding woes of the city. The growing influx of outsiders is not only putting severe stress on the infrastructure of the city, but also proving to be one of the major reasons of increasing floods in Mumbai. This fact has been substantiated by the BMC, which has provided a chart of flood days since 1945.

The junta lets a bit more aid in

Two natural disasters; two very different responses. We look first at the government's response to the earthquake in China, then at poor Myanmar AP "DON'T cry, don't cry. It's a disaster, and you've survived,' China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, told weeping orphans in a town almost flattened by the country's worst natural disaster in more than 30 years. Mr Wen's awkward words may have done little to calm the bereaved children. But amid the huge destruction caused by the earthquake of May 12th, China's leaders thus far have scored some unusual public-relations successes.

China has shown up Myanmar's generals. But it is not too late for outsiders to help the Burmese Eyevine