By John Sexton & Keen Zhang
China.org.cn correspondents reporting from Sichuan
The International Red Cross movement is mounting a major effort to provide clean water and sanitation facilities to quake-hit townships in Sichuan's Mianzhu prefecture as part of ongoing work to prevent a post-disaster epidemic.
Red Cross workers listening to residents problems and requests. The organization is eager to be responsive to people's needs.
Three Emergency Response Units, (ERU), one from Spain, one from the UK and a joint Austrian-French team are carrying out the work. But this understates the multinational nature of the enterprise. The overall coordinator is from Finland, and in keeping with the international spirit of the operation, the leader of the UK team is from Germany. Everything is being done in collaboration with the Chinese Red Cross who will take over the facilities after a few weeks.
The main Red Cross base camp is in Jiulong town, which was virtually leveled in the earthquake, with smaller bases in Xinglong and Banqiao. Jiulong is the hub of an area of scattered farming communities lying on flat land at the foot of the mountains, close to the earthquake epicenter, Wenchuan. Around 400 Juilong residents died in the quake, including more than 150 children who were crushed when their school collapsed.
Tiina Saarikoski, the overall project coordinator, and Jaime Bara, leader of the Spanish team, took us on a tour of their installations in the rubble that was once a town, where many of the residents live in tents erected beside, and sometimes inside, the ruins of their homes. They showed us the traditional wells that may have been polluted by chemical spills and decomposing bodies in the aftermath of the earthquake. Ongoing threats to well water safety are careless disposal of food waste and human excrement. The Red Cross is providing stand pipes to deliver clean and safe water that has been processed by their mobile treatment plants. Simultaneously hundreds of prefabricated toilets are being erected throughout the area.
As we walked, the Red Crossers took every opportunity to explain to residents that basic hygiene is of the utmost importance during the post-quake period. UK team leader Ina Bluemel said "We're spreading the message on how you handle hygiene promotion in an emergency situation. There are a few key messages that can help prevent disease." The local people were extremely welcoming, almost embarrassingly grateful for the assistance offered by the Red Cross.