Under China's newly-improved natural disaster emergency system, which monitors disaster-occurring round-the-clock, the damage caused by Typhoon Damrey that newly raked China cannot slip from government's eyes, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).
Wang Zhenyao, director of the Disaster Relief Department under the MCA, said the emergency response system requires the local government to trace every death. Local governments have to report within 24 hours to the central government the death toll, the figure of people evacuated and houses collapsed.
The central government has established disaster aid communication network in counties, villages, even local communities. Every tent in the disaster-hit area is labeled with the name card of the government staff who send provision to victims, Wang said.
The disaster aid team of the central government has to arrive at scene within 24 hours to conduct aid with the local team. "So any cheating on figures is impossible."
In areas where typhoon often occurs, residents always think by a fluke that they could be free of danger, which, however, becomes an obstacle of aid, Wang said.
This August, in east China's typhoon-hit Zhejiang Province, the local government asked all the fisherman back to the shore and owners of all the poor and old houses to evacuate.
Typhoon Damrey claimed 25 lives in south China's Hainan Province after it slammed into this island province on Monday morning. The total economic loss caused by Damrey was estimated to be about 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion).
By the end of 2004, China had established emergency response systems covering all the 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and 310 out of 333 cities, 2,347 out of 2,861 counties have mapped out their own emergency response systems, said a press conference held by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on September 22.
(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2005)
