China's Red Cross boosted by regional cooperation mechanism

The emergency response capability of the Red Cross Society of China has increased significantly thanks to a regional cooperation mechanism established more than a year ago, an official said during a news conference on Tuesday.

Since May of last year, China's Red Cross began dividing its emergency rescue forces nationwide into six different blocks to improve efficiency of team mobilization and deployment in response to major incidents and crisis.

Sun Shuopeng, vice-president of China's Red Cross, said that within about six months, the six blocks have been constructed, and drills and training have been carried out.

For instance, the eastern coordination region covers Shanghai, the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Fujian and contains 356 rescue groups. The southern coordination region covers the provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Hainan and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and comprises 225 rescue teams.

Sun said that during this year's flood season, all of the five provinces and regions in South China were affected, and the mechanism was activated to send 104 rescue teams comprising 4,500 members.

Boris Kelecevic, deputy head of the East Asia Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said that the establishment of the mechanism is a comprehensive summary of the past work of China's Red Cross.

"More importantly, it is a forward-looking, planning and preparedness approach for effective resource mobilizing and advanced emergency response capacity," he added.

Sun said that efforts will be made to enhance cooperation and coordination, upgrade regional distribution of rescue forces, as well as deepen cooperation with emergency response and health authorities and official and civil emergency response teams.

Fang Biling contributed to the story.