Ancient Chinese sage Confucius said that inability to see far beyond ferments potential trouble beneath. The release of the general plan for emergency response by the State Council on Sunday is a move by the central government to guard against potential troubles.

The fact that monitoring, potential risk analysis and preventive measures are given prominence in the plan indicates that the cabinet has indeed placed emphasis on the efforts to treat the issue from a far-sighted perspective.

The plan is a general guideline for specific responses to any emergency in any part of the country.

All emergencies such as natural disasters, accidents and outbreak of pandemics take place in specific places. So it is crucial for local governments at various levels understand the core of the general plan and carry it out to the letter.

Current river water pollution cases in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, east China's Shandong Province and central China's Hunan Province are not only testing the capability of these local governments in dealing with emergencies, but also have demonstrated loopholes in local mechanisms for preventing such calamities.

Two of the three accidents were caused by discharge of pollutants directly into rivers by enterprises. The other was caused by the leaking of diesel oil from a firm into a river.

These accidents could have been prevented had the monitoring and preventive measures been strictly carried out by local governments and relevant enterprises.

In just three months, five water contamination cases have been reported, which could all be attributed to accidents in enterprises.

This has demonstrated that the mechanism for monitoring and preventive measures against emergencies needs to be either established or optimized at enterprise level.

The general plan requires that contingency measures be established at the following levels: a general one for the State Council; one for special emergencies made by the cabinet and its relevant departments; one for relevant central government departments; one for local governments at various levels; schemes for enterprises and contingency plans for big entertainment or sports events.

This requirement hits the nail squarely on the head.

For the handling of information about emergencies, the general plan stipulates that major incidents must be reported to the State Council within four hours and the public should be informed in a timely and accurate manner.

In the water contamination case in Harbin, capital city of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, in November, the local government held back the truth the first day, but told it the following day to its residents. This proved to be important in keeping locals calm in the face of water shortages.

When a section of the Eastern Third Ring Road in Beijing caved in a week ago, the capital municipal government sent mobile phone text messages to inform its residents, which proved to be effective in easing traffic jams along that part of the road.

It is reported that the schemes for emergencies have already been made by the State Council departments, and so have the ones by the provincial and autonomous region governments. Many local governments are in the process of making their plans.

A national mechanism for emergency response is in the making and will take shape soon. It will hopefully help prevent some accidents from happening, and reduce losses from natural disasters and epidemics.

(China Daily January 10, 2006)