Post-quake recovery in Gansu moving forward

A total of 784 injured people have been received by medical institutions at the provincial, prefecture and county levels after a magnitude-6.2 earthquake in Gansu province on Monday, local officials said at a news conference on Thursday morning.

The quake mainly hit Jishishan county of the Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture in Gansu.

"After the earthquake, the provincial health commission immediately launched an emergency response and made every effort to treat the injured, provided psychological counseling and some other work," Bai Yuping, deputy director of the commission, said at the conference. "Medical treatment has been carried out in an effective and orderly manner."

Medical institutions opened special channels to ensure that mildly injured people would receive treatment nearby. Those more seriously injured were quickly transferred to provincial- and prefecture-level hospitals, where experts designed treatment plans for each of them.

"We also tried to restore normal medical service in the county," Bai said. "We have set up 19 medical treatment points and one mobile hospital to meet people's daily health needs."

The commission has dispatched 21 teams, with 21 ambulances and 63 medical workers to travel deep into 35 villages in the four most affected townships.

To strengthen the allocation of necessary drugs, in addition to restoring the normal operation of pharmacies, a total of 102,000 boxes of medicines for basic diseases such as colds, trauma, digestion, hypertension and diabetes have been deployed and distributed to the population.

At the same time, the provincial housing and construction department dispatched experts to the disaster areas to investigate the damage to buildings and municipal facilities, to assess construction needs and to make emergency repairs.

"As of 6 am on Thursday, engineering and technical experts have completed the preliminary investigation and assessment of kindergartens, schools and hospitals in Jishishan county," said Qin Jun, a department official. "Emergency assessments of all houses in 19 villages in two townships — Dahejia and Liuji, which were the most severely affected — have been completed."

Water and gas services in the county have resumed, and heating has been basically restored.

"It is expected that the emergency assessment of all housing buildings in 31 villages in three townships — Bougatan, Shiyuan and Liugou — will be completed on Thursday," Qin said. "The work in 105 villages of the other 12 townships in Jishishan will be done this week."

Video by Li Kaojun