Having launched an emergency-response administrative office on Tuesday, this coastal province in south China is now setting its sights on drawing up a province-wide emergency-response plan, said a top government official of Guangdong.

The office will be entrusted with coping with potential public emergencies.

The office will mainly be responsible for reporting serious foreign and domestic incidents, managing emergency situations, coordinating response plans and otherwise handling public assistance.

"As a coastal province, Guangdong has seen its share of public incidents, including natural disasters and epidemic diseases, in recent years. So it is essential that we set up a central office and a scheme to cope with such incidents," Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua said.

Huang said geological disasters caused about 500 casualties between 2002 and the end of last year and resulted in direct economic losses of about 2 billion yuan (US$256 million).

"Having a comprehensive emergency-response plan will allow us to predict and handle any kind of potential public emergency. Our scheme will cover all county-level areas in the province this year," Huang was quoted as saying by the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News yesterday.

Huang said Guangdong had registered more than 90,000 plans aimed at coping with various public incidents last year, ranging from natural disasters, workplace incidents and public health disasters to security issues.

"First, we will not allow any delays in the release of information about such incidents to the public. The goal is to make sure people know how to cope with them rather than keeping them uninformed about what is happening around them," Huang said.

Huang also said Guangdong will set up a province-wide database of information from rescue experts and coordinated response plans to allow for the timely management of public disasters.

"A comprehensive command platform will also be set up to allow officials and experts from the emergency-response office to be present at the scene when incidents occur," Huang said.

In another development, Guangdong will also organize a series of drills targeting terrorist attacks, serious animal-related diseases, earthquakes, floods, geological disasters, nuclear incidents, traffic accidents in subways and airplane crashes.

Meanwhile, another emergency response office was also set up early last month in Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

Sources with the Guangzhou office said they were drafting a local contingency plan for public accidents and would release a completed version at the end of this year.
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(China Daily May 10, 2007)