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Mudslides in Zhouqu
Mudslides in Zhouqu
UPDATED: August 13, 2010 NO. 33 AUGUST 19, 2010
Muddy Misery
Resources are pooled into a landslide-devastated county in China's northwest to lift it out of disaster
By LI LI
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PROMISING ASSISTANCE: During his field inspection in Zhouqu County on August 9, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao consoles local residents who lost family members to the disastrous landslides and floods (LI XUEREN)

Xu's ministry and its local branches have sent more than 150 geological experts to Zhouqu for field studies on locations prone to geological disasters. The information will be used to determine the possibility of future disasters, vulnerable spots will be put into a monitoring system and evacuation plans will be drafted.  

Relief in full swing

According to official statistics, 1,243 survivors had been rescued by August 10. The Ministry of Public Security said that by 5 p.m. on August 9, the 1,397 firefighters on rescue missions in Zhouqu had removed 78 people from collapsed buildings. Traffic police forces have also been mobilized to control traffic on roads leading to the devastated county to ensure that badly needed supplies and rescue personnel can be transported efficiently.

By 4 p.m. on August 9, a total of nearly 5,000 armed policemen, People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers and airmen had arrived in Zhouqu with professional rescue, engineering and medical equipment to help with the rescue. Most of them were from Gansu, while others were from neighboring Sichuan Province and Beijing.

An 80-member rescue team sent by the China Earthquake Administration, equipped with 12 dogs and life-detecting devices, arrived at Zhouqu on the afternoon of August 9. They joined rescue operations immediately after their arrival.

On August 9, the water level in the county seat began to recede after the corps of engineers used explosives on the mud blockade and armed police forces used excavators to clear the sludge from the bottom of the lake. "The danger of a sudden burst of the barrier lake has been basically eliminated," Jiao Yong, Vice Minister of Water Resources, said at a State Council Information Office press conference on August 11.

In total, more than 13,000 people have been evacuated to higher ground, and three temporary settlement centers, with government-installed tents, were set up on August 9. The first batch of relief materials arrived at the settlement centers early on August 9, and was distributed to people there immediately. The same morning, the first batch of relief materials sent by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, 5,000 sleeping bags, arrived at Zhouqu. Three more batches of tents, sleeping bags and folding beds were on their way from Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, on chartered trains.

China's Red Cross Society said on August 9 it will give another 1 million yuan ($147,000) to Zhouqu to purchase emergency supplies like food and drinking water. It has also allocated relief supplies worth 400,000 yuan ($58,800) for the region. So far, the Red Cross Society and its branches have donated 3.5 million yuan ($514,700) in funds and goods to Zhouqu.

"Relief materials are arriving at the county batch by batch, and have been orderly distributed to residents in need, whose demands for food, drinking water, clothing, shelter and medical care have been basically met," Chen Jianhua, Party chief of Gannan, said at a press conference on the evening of August 9.

On August 10, the Gansu Provincial Government announced its plan to distribute a daily living allowance of 150 yuan ($22) per person to people affected by the landslides and floods for 15 days, starting August 10. Then every person will receive 10 yuan ($1.47) and half a kg of grain per day as living allowance during a three-month transitional period. The families of those killed in the disaster have been given 8,000 yuan ($1,176) as burial expenses. The government will also distribute subsidies up to 25,000 yuan ($3,676) to families that need to repair and reconstruct their homes.

A government press conference on August 10 said that the drinking water shortage had been gradually alleviated after the government found 24 new functioning wells in the county and destroyed water pipelines were being restored.

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