Emergency management strides ahead

Change for efficiency

In the country's latest national institutional reform, 13 responsibilities from 11 government bodies, mostly related to disaster relief, were shifted to the newly established Ministry of Emergency Management in April. As part of the reform, 200,000 firefighters from the armed forest police that are responsible for forest fire control, and the firefighting force under public security authorities, were transferred to the new ministry.

Zhou Wei, deputy head of the ministry's emergency command center, said China's institutional advantages have been demonstrated in disaster relief, as all necessary resources can be mobilized to address major challenges.

"We now have a solid, unified team for disaster relief work," he said.

The institutional advantages were also visible after Shouguang, a major vegetable-growing area in Shandong province, was hit on Aug 18 by one of the most serious floods in decades.

The flood inundated farmhouses and drowned large numbers of livestock. Water up to 1 meter deep lingered in some places for a week.

Soon after the flood was triggered, the ministry dispatched a work team to carry out a preliminary investigation in stricken areas. It found that facilities for floodwater drainage were seriously needed, said Guo, head of rescue coordination.

He said the ministry then called out more than 7,000 firefighters and other workers from four nearby provincial regions, including Hebei province and Tianjin, and sent them to the stricken areas, where they carried out drainage projects.

The ministry said it has established an information collecting platform. Both central government bodies and local governments of each provincial region can report emergency incidents to the ministry via the platform. The system ensures that the top emergency management authorities are made aware of the latest situation in a timely manner.

Fan Weicheng, director of Tsinghua University's School of Public Safety Research, said having a unified command for disaster relief is clearly stated in China's law on emergency response and the requirement for advance planning ensures that properly targeted actions will be undertaken.

"Once something happens, there will be someone responsible for it. Not only will that person take up responsibility proactively but he or she will cope with the situation in a scientific and reasonable manner," Fan said.