Yao Ming determined to help people in quake tragedy
Updated: 2008-05-26 09:19
CONCORD, North Carolina -- Yao Ming wakes up each morning and immediately heads for the computer to get the latest news on the earthquake that devastated China.
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The Houston Rockets' NBA All-Star center and China's most recognizable athlete awoke Sunday to more bad news: a powerful aftershock had killed one person and destroyed 70,000 homes.
"Every day the number is going up. This morning it was over 62,000 people killed," Yao said. "We are very sad for the people we have lost in the earthquake."
Yao was at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Sunday for the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600, one of five major stock car races in the United States, shooting hoops with stock-car drivers and getting a lesson on changing tires from a pit crew as part of a promotion with Coca-Cola. But a somber Yao was clearly focused on the devastation to his home country.
"We have a long way to go to create a new place for the people who don't have a place to stay right now," Yao said.
Yao, who has donated US$290,000 and filmed public service television announcements through the Red Cross for the relief efforts, led the crowd in a moment of silence for China's victims before the Coca-Cola 600.
"The best thing you can do for the government is to send money there and people there to help them," Yao said as he sat in a motor home parked in the track's infield. "But we also need to warm them. They're hurt mentally by the earthquake. I heard some kids cannot sleep in the middle of the night because they're scared. Any kind of help, it's more than just the money."
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