Thirty years after one of modern history's most devastating earthquakes killed 242,000 residents of Tangshan, in north China's Hebei Province, an international exercise started Sunday in the province to explore ways of saving lives in any such future catastrophes. 

The exercise got underway Sunday in Hebei's provincial capital and sought to test how 18 countries could work together when earthquakes struck and how prepared were residents to cope with the aftermath. 

Part of the event, the Asian-Pacific Regional Earthquake Exercise, is being carried out to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. It will end today and it's the first time that China has hosted the exercise. 

"The Tangshan earthquake occurred at a time when the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) did not exist and the international urban search and rescue community and governments did not have any globally agreed standards and procedures," Arjun Katoch, chief of the Field Co-ordination Support Section of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)'s Emergency Services Branch, said at the exercise workshop.

However, he said, "During the past 15 years, since the creation of INSARAG the international community has made significant progress in improving international co-ordination and cooperation in major disasters particularly with earthquakes."

Katoch stressed that one of the biggest challenges with any major disaster was the lack of information in the first hours and days after the event. In particular the national authorities were quickly under pressure while many international helpers were arriving and needed to be integrated effectively into national response activities.

Some 200 participants from China and 17 other countries discussed Sunday at Shijiazhuang International Airport how they could best quickly arrive in a country after an earthquake had occurred and what difficulties they might encounter. 

Afterwards they spent a day in an urban type building to work out rescue options for various disaster-stricken urban locations.

Song Sung-jin, international program coordinator of the (South) Korea Search and Rescue Team, said: "I am here to learn how to co-ordinate with rescuers from other countries. The exercise will definitely enhance my ability on how to respond when I am dispatched overseas."

He stressed that it was essential to understand the international work mechanisms which came within the United Nations framework.

An earthquake emergency rescue volunteer team set up by the Alliance Residential Community in Shijiazhuang, the first of its kind in China, also participated Sunday. Over 300 community residents volunteered to be part of the exercise. 

"It will be a total mess if every person does not help others and only cares about their own interests when an earthquake occurs," said Li Yanping, a 38-year-old government official acting as a volunteer in the community. "I believe it's the best way that volunteer teams help everyone no matter whether it's family members or others," she said.

Earthquakes are the deadliest form of natural disaster in China, according to Huang Jianfa, director of the earthquake emergency relief division of the China Earthquake Administration. Earthquake fatalities had accounted for 54 percent of natural disaster deaths since 1949, he said.

(China Daily August 7, 2006)