Soldiers help to erect tents as temporary homes for evacuated earthquake victims (JIANG WANLIU)

August 1 is the founding anniversary of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). It's a date with particular public resonance this year because of the crucial role the military has played in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake.

The 8.0-magnitude earthquake that struck China's southwestern Sichuan Province on the afternoon of May 12 and its aftershocks had killed nearly 70,000 and injured more than 370,000 people by the end of July. Immediately after the most destructive earthquake since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, 130,000 soldiers and armed police officers entered the earthquake zone.

Just 13 minutes after the earthquake, the emergency response system of the Chinese army was activated.

Two hours after the earthquake, two helicopters from Chengdu Military Area Command took off amid heavy rain on a mission to appraise the seriousness of the quake. Five and a half hours after the earthquake, a relief team, consisting of 227 military engineers and engineering soldiers from Beijing Military Area Command, boarded an airplane for the quake zone.

Military forces stationed in the earthquake zone sent their first batch of 9,100 people to participate in the rescue work immediately after the earthquake. The air force, military and military cargo aircraft were ordered to prepare themselves for flights at any time throughout the night.

Within 10 hours of the earthquake, over 12,000 members of the armed forces and armed police forces had entered the earthquake zone.

In the early morning of May 13, some 23 military cargo aircraft and 12 civil airliners embarked on 78 flights to transport rescue equipment and 10,891 military personnel from the three cities of Luoyang, Wuhan and Kaifeng to the four airports around Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan Province.

The scale of this operation was unprecedented in Chinese military history.

On May 15, the Central Military Commission allocated another 61 military helicopters for earthquake relief missions, which arrived in the earthquake zone from all directions of the country within 16 hours. This operation in Sichuan's northwest had become the largest of its kind in the history of Chinese military.

Over 130,000 members of the military were working for the relief effort within days of the earthquake, including more than 20 types of professional force, with specialties such as scouting, communications, engineering, surveying and mapping, meteorology, healthcare and repair work. Their diversity and speed were admired throughout China and applauded around the world.

The earthquake and the ensuing landslides cut off road traffic to Wenchuan, the county at the epicenter of the quake. Around 34 hours after the earthquake, a team of 200 soldiers entered the main urban center of Wenchuan after walking 90 km through the mountains in 21 hours. They reported the destruction of the earthquake to army commanders using satellite telephones, which provided an important basis for the decision-making of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

On May 16, Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered an order on earthquake relief to take all measures to enter all earthquake-devastated villages.

From the evening of May 16, military relief teams began a long march, day and night, to reach mountainous villages cut off from the outside world. Within one week of the earthquake, military relief forces had entered all the 244 townships and 2,044 villages according to their orders.

By July 17, about 138,000 relief forces from the army and armed police had rescued 3,336 people from the earthquake rubble and evacuated 1.4 million as well as clearing over 19.42 million cubic meters of rubble and disinfecting 1.55 billion square meters of ground. Military medical forces had treated over 1.19 million injured, and military aircraft had flown 4,684 times and transported 7,474 tons of material.

As well as physical aid, the military brought mental relief. The General Political Department of the PLA organized the first team of therapists from military forces to the earthquake zone, which offered psychological therapy for 895 people and trained 216 therapists for local medical institutions and earthquake relief forces.

The military also acted as the guardian of civil society when on May 20, a unit of military relief forces dug cash, bankbooks, jewelry and securities worth nearly 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) from the debris in Ya'an City, Sichuan Province and handed them over to their owners. On May 19-21, at the request of the local government, two engineering detachments used heavy machinery to dig up bags of money and cash vaults from the rubble of two banks in Beichuan County.

(Compiled from reports of Xinhua News Agency)