Emergency drills save lives

Earthquake drills help primary school students in Yiliang county, Yunnan province, survive earthquakes, which reminds us the importance of emergency survival training in daily life, says an article on Beijing Times. Excerpts:

When earthquakes struck, 1,102 students in the Maoping Central Primary School in Yiliang county, Yunnan province, moved from the teaching building to the playground in one minute. None of the students was injured or died in the earthquake, thanks to regular earthquake drills the schools arranged after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008.

But a news report shows that only 1 percent of the population in China have received emergency survival training. The number is much less than that of developed countries, which is generally 50 percent.

Emergency survival training is important to saving people’s lives in critical moments. The drills simulate disaster scenes and help people deal with an emergency calmly. It’s not difficult for institutes, companies and schools to practice drills several times a year.

The absence of emergency survival training and drills expose our lack of emphasis on life and rescue. The skills of self-rescue in an emergency are crucial to one’s life, and deserve more attention from the authorities and the public.