China moves quickly in quake zone

As the death toll from Monday's earthquake mounted, China threw its army into rescue operations - reflecting the priority that Beijing has increasingly put on efficient disaster relief, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

The country appears to be well prepared for such an operation, says Roger Musson, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh. "They are very good at putting together a disaster relief plan rather quickly."

More than 6,000 soldiers and militarized police were dispatched to the disaster area, carrying out standing orders in the event of an earthquake, a military spokesman said.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who flew to Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, less than two hours after the quake hit, told reporters en route that government leaders have "asked officials at all levels to be at the front line of the fighting the earthquake and lead the people in their rescue work".

China's annual buffeting from typhoons has led the authorities to build an efficient disaster relief structure, according to Xue Lan, professor of public administration at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

"One dramatic improvement is in life-saving" says Professor Xue. "Death tolls have been falling in recent years even though typhoons have been getting fiercer. China is doing much better than it used to."

As well as passing a special law on emergency management last year, setting out the government's responsibilities, China has built a regional network of emergency management offices, reporting to the State Council, which acts as the government's cabinet.

In a Category 1 disaster, as Monday's quake was declared to be, local officials are authorized to ignore normal chains of command and report directly to the top levels of the government, according to Mao Shoulong, professor of public policy at Renmin University in Beijing.

In addition to the thousands of soldiers and policemen dispatched to the epicenter in Wenchuan county, emergency medical teams were sent from major cities on the east coast to the quake zone, the newspaper said.

Beijing at its best in dealing with crisis

The devastating Sichuan earthquake and the Chinese government's admirably swift response have made the world witness a patriotism it can applaud: a China uniting in both empathy and efficient practicality to respond to the latest of the natural disasters to which the country has always been painfully prone, the Australian reported.

In China, information has flowed swiftly. When it learned that two schools had collapsed, the official Xinhua News Agency reported starkly that while many had been killed at once, hundreds of children remained trapped in the debris.

Chinese TV crews have provided constant coverage since the earthquake struck mid-afternoon on Monday.

President Hu Jintao swiftly called an emergency meeting of the standing committee of the Politburo and mobilized the People's Liberation Army to help, as well as ordering up large quantities of food, medicine, clothes and tents to be sent to the stricken area, with an initial $30 million allocated to the operation.

The meeting sent Premier Wen Jiabao, who is a geologist by training, and two vice-premiers, Li Keqiang and Hui Liangyu, to take charge of relief operations from a disaster headquarters established at Dujiangyan, a small city to the north of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

State television has interrupted normal programming to run live updates of the earthquake in southwestern Sichuan province. The evening soap operas have been replaced by interviews with residents and survivors.

On the Internet, official news agencies have issued report after report to provide the latest death toll. Details of rescue operations, of missing children and of damaged hospitals have not been concealed, the newspaper said.

Responding to Sichuan disaster

The response of China's government to an earthquake that struck the central Sichuan province on the afternoon of Monday appears to be strikingly efficient, the Economist reported.

Details of China's earthquake are being spread quickly, and the official response has been open.

China has moved quickly to mobilize, but given the magnitude of the disaster, and the likely increase in the death toll, China certainly faces further tests on the efficacy of its response.

With many buildings collapsing, particular scrutiny may fall on China's system for setting and enforcing construction codes in earthquake-prone zones such as Sichuan, the magazine said.

(China Daily 05/15/2008 page9)