The 2008 Olympic host city of Beijing has worked out a comprehensive
emergency response and disaster relief plan that involves not only armed police,
fire fighters, medical workers and government officials, but also local
residents.
The plan, made public early this week, lists 29 kinds of emergencies that
Beijing, an international metropolis with a population of 15 million, might face
in the next five years.
These emergencies include natural disasters like earthquakes and drought,
accidents like fires, blackout and terrorist attacks, public health emergencies
like SARS and avian flu outbreaks, and clashes, such as between migrant workers
and employers who delay or arbitrarily reduce payments.
Totally 13 command headquarters to deal with each of these emergencies have
been set up and will begin operating by the end of this month. The municipal
government and the city's 18 districts and counties have also set up emergency
response centres.
A co-ordination mechanism is being built among municipal and district-level
centres and the 13 command headquarters, called the "three-level emergency
response mechanism," according to Lu Mingqi, a senior official with the Beijing
Municipal Government who is involved in drafting the plan.
Lu, speaking at an international Beijing Olympics crisis management and
emergency response symposium, revealed that Beijing will set up hotlines to
accept emergency and non-emergency reports.
Like the 911 number in the United State to deal with emergencies, Beijing's
110 hotline will be dealing with crime, fires, traffic accidents and all other
emergencies. The number is used exclusively for reporting crimes at present.
A 12345 hotline will become the non-emergency hotline like number of 311 in
the United States.
"The three-level emergency response mechanism and the two hotlines jointly
constitute the basic framework of Beijing's emergency response system, which was
built after the outbreak of SARS in 2003," Lu told China Daily on the sidelines
of the symposium.
Although the new emergency response and disaster relief plan is part of the
city's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) and its goals are set to be achieved in
2010, Olympic security is the principal concern.
For instance, a citywide computer surveillance network will be set up and put
into operation ahead of the Games.
At present, more than 260,000 hidden cameras have been installed around the
city, 94 per cent located in financial institutions, hotels, schools and
residential communities, according to statistics from the Beijing Municipal
Bureau of Public Security.
Wang Angsheng, an emergency management expert with the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, said information is the sine qua non of emergency response.
Wang, also an advisor to the municipal emergency response centre, said by the
end of this year all the city's metro lines, overpasses, underground passages
and other public places will have cameras installed. The images from the
surveillance network will be integrated into one information analysis platform
by the end of 2007, and the information will be shared by the emergency response
centres at all three levels.
The city will also set up emergency relief centres at every Olympic Games
venue before 2008, according to the plan.
It says the city plans to build more than 100 emergency relief centres
capable of accommodating 50,000 to 100,000 people each throughout the capital
before 2010.
Key venues including the Olympic park, where the main Olympic stadium is
located, and the Olympic village, where athletes competing in the 2008 Games
will stay, will receive their attendant relief centres first.
Beijing already has 28 emergency relief centres capable of sheltering up to
1.7 million people.
Izumi Harada, from the Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies in
Japan, said Beijing's Olympics organizers should step up efforts to remove
potential threats from terrorist attacks, safety incidents in and around the
venues, food poisoning disasters and computer hackers.
Harada, attending the international forum on crisis management and emergency
response of Beijing Olympics last week, said the emergency management of the
Beijing Olympic Games needed to adopt a pre-emptive strategy using state of the
art information technology.
Hou Xinyi, deputy director of the technology department of the Beijing
Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), said the key to
security lies in the use of technology.
"Athens introduced a number of hi-tech devices in the 2004 Games, but a large
part of them were left unused," Hou said. "So we should strengthen our personnel
training to efficiently use our hardware."
In a latest development, Beijing is planning to install not only monitor
cameras and but also shield doors to prevent waiting passengers falling off onto
the rail, according to a report on BOCOG website.
The move comes after two successive accidents that two persons fell down onto
the rail on October 18 and October 23 respectively.
"The No 1 and No 2 Line of the subway are undergoing an overall restructuring
with high-tech equipment to strengthen safety measures," said Zhan Minghui,
deputy manager of the Beijing Subway, adding that more subway staff members are
dispatched on each station to remind waiting passengers not to cross "the yellow
safety line".
Zhan was quoted as saying that except a few suicide attempts, most subway
falling victims had stepped out of the safety line to pick up falling articles
or just out of curiosity.
"One would get a deadly electric shock if he fell onto the rail and touched
the 825-volt high-tension electric track. The scenario is worse when a train is
arriving. Even when the driver immediately activates the emergency brake, the
train would still slide for about 100 meters before stopping, often causing
miserable deaths," said Zhan, adding that suspended subway service would add
great pressure to road traffic.
Zhan said after restructuring, monitor cameras will cover the whole platforms
and shield doors will prevent passengers from crossing over the safety
lines.