The ratings of KTSF-TV Channel 26’s Cantonese newscast increased 44 percent Monday night to 39,000 people as the station covered the earthquake in China’s Sichuan province, the Chron’s Joe Garofoli reports. He notes that while Channel 26 doesn’t have any reporters in China, it is monitoring broadcasts from networks in Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as from the state-run China Central Television (CCTV).

“News writer Anne Ng said the station’s editors have been culling information equally from all three sources. It has also been connecting with some of the approximately 10,000 descendents of the Sichuan province living in the Bay Area, who have connected the station via phone with relatives and friends living in the quake zone.”

Meanwhile, sales of the Sing Tao Daily and the World Journal were way up today, the Oakland Tribune reports. The Trib quoted one store owner in Oakland’s Chinatown as saying he sold a third more Chinese papers than usual. On Monday, however, the major Chinese papers didn’t have the story. They’re transmitted in the middle of the night to printing presses in the Bay Area, and the newspapers are distributed mid-morning. Because the earthquake occurred in the pre-dawn hours Pacific time, the U.S. editions of those newspapers did not carry the earthquake news Monday.

Both KTSF and Sing Tao Daily are helping with fundraising. Sing Tao has set up a disaster relief fund that will collect donations from its readers around the world, said Tim Lau, CEO of the paper’s West Coast operations, according to the AP. The photo above shows people lined up to make donations in Sing Tao’s office in San Francisco’s Chinatown. KTSF has posted this Web page that tells viewers how they can help relief efforts. (Photo credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP)