BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out rescue efforts to minimize casualties after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted southwest China’s Sichuan Province on Monday, stressing that saving lives should be taken as the primary task.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the instruction after the quake hit Luding County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, at 12:52 p.m. Monday.
The earthquake has left at least 21 people dead and more than 30 injured, causing damage to infrastructure facilities, such as the water and electricity supply, transportation and telecommunications.
Xi stressed strengthening quake monitoring, guarding against secondary disasters, and properly accommodating those affected.
While calling for utmost efforts to ensure the safety of people’s lives and property, Xi asked the Ministry of Emergency Management and other departments to send teams to Sichuan to guide the relief work and ordered the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police Force to actively assist local disaster relief efforts. Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, urged swift evaluation of the situation, as well as all-out rescue and medical treatment efforts.
He also urged locals to stay alert for secondary disasters such as landslides, in the meantime calling for efforts to accommodate those from quake-hit areas and fix damaged transportation and telecommunication infrastructure as quickly as possible.
In accordance with Xi and Li’s instructions, departments including the Ministry of Emergency Management, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Health Commission have all dispatched teams to quake-hit areas to provide direction on disaster relief. Authorities of Sichuan Province and Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture have organized personnel to carry out disaster relief missions and sent tents, quilts, cots and other resources to quake-hit areas.
Meanwhile, The National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management activated a Level IV emergency response to the earthquake. Under China’s four-tier emergency response system, Level I represents the most severe response.
The ministry said in a news release that it had sent a team headed by Min Yiren, chief of the China Earthquake Administration, to guide disaster relief work in Luding.
Wang Xiangxi, minister of emergency management, arrived at the ministry’s command center soon after the quake to coordinate disaster relief work, according to the release.
Officials from the Ganzi prefectural government said at a news conference on Monday that damage to roads, communications facilities and homes was being checked. The prefecture sent 635 rescue personnel, including armed police officers, firefighters, medical workers, communication professionals and power technicians, to carry out rescue and relief work, they said.
Five seconds after the earthquake, a real-time early warning system developed by the Institute of Care-Life in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, said that seismic waves would reach Kangding, the capital of Ganzi prefecture, seven seconds later, the city of Ya’an, adjacent to Luding, in 20 seconds, and Chengdu in 50 seconds.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
