China Red Cross rushes help to remote quake hit area
Red Cross Society of China emergency teams are hard at work to bring help to survivors of a series of earthquakes that have struck a remote and underdeveloped southwestern region of China. The earthquakes - the strongest of which was magnitude 5.7 - left more than 80 people dead and approximately 800 injured. Over 200,000 people were evacuated from their homes.
Thousands of quilts and warm jackets, and hundreds of tents have been distributed to the worst-hit areas in Yiliang County, Yunnan, which is more than six hours by road from the provincial capital, Kunming. Further supplies of quilts, tents, warm jackets and family kits consisting of household items will also be transported to neighbouring Guizhou province.
The Red Cross Society of China’s specialist Blue Sky rescue team has been deployed to help efforts to find survivors who may be still trapped among the rubble. Among those they have already rescued from the ruins of collapsed homes on Sunday included a 78-year-old woman and a 58-year-old farm worker.
An Emergency Response Team from the Yunnan Red Cross has also been deployed to provide latrines to survivors in one of the main temporary camps for the displaced. This is the second deployment of this team, trained and equipped using a module handed over to the Red Cross Society of China by the British Red Cross after its deployment in Sichuan following the 2008 earthquake. It was also deployed after an earthquake in Qinghai province in 2010.
