Civilian Disaster Relief Team Reached Epicenter Faster Than CCP

Civilian Disaster Relief Team Reached Epicenter Faster Than CCP
A soldier stands behind a roadblock at the ruined area of Beichuan township on May 20, 2008 in Beichuan, Sichuan province, China. (M. N. Chan/Getty Images)
5/20/2008
Updated:
5/20/2008

According to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s official report, China’s first spontaneous civilian disaster relief team with heavy construction equipment, arrived at the epicenter of Sichuan within 36 hours after last Monday’s earthquake, for a large-scale comprehensive relief operation.

Surprisingly, the response of this makeshift team was faster than that of the CCP’s military disaster relief troops with advanced resources.

Reportedly, the leader of this quick-response rescue team is Chen Guangbiao, board chairman of Huangpu Recycling Resources Company in Jiangsu Province. When the earthquake hit Wenchuan County, he was having a board meeting in Wuhan.

Chen immediately began rescue deployment upon learning the news. At 4:40 p.m. on the same day, a 120-person rescue team with 60 cranes, bulldozers, excavators and other large equipment normally used for construction, made their way from the provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui towards the quake’s epicenter in Sichuan.

Within 36 hours after the quake hit, this team had entered Mianyang City. Although other civilian teams would make their way to the disaster zone, Chen’s was on the scene first. This team has also carried out relief operations in Dujiangyan City, Mao County, as well as the hard hit Beichuan County in Mianyang.

The CCP’s Troops Respond Slower than Civilians

Meanwhile, the CCP’s military troops, with their advanced electronic equipment, military helicopters and cargo-transport planes, were unable to make them to the disaster areas until well after the civilian effort had arrived. According to the Xinhua.net, the arrivals of the military rescue team are as follows:

    A quake survivor listens to news on the radio from a makeshift shelter near the deserted quake-ravaged town of Beichuan, which was closed off for fear of aftershocks and landslides on May 20, 2008 in southwest China's quake-stricken Sichuan province. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
    A quake survivor listens to news on the radio from a makeshift shelter near the deserted quake-ravaged town of Beichuan, which was closed off for fear of aftershocks and landslides on May 20, 2008 in southwest China's quake-stricken Sichuan province. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

  • The rescue vehicles began to enter Beichuan 49 hours after the quake.

  • One hundred soldiers entered Mao 35 hours after the quake.

  • Two hundreds soldiers entered Wenchuan 49 hours after the quake.

    Slow Military Deployment

    Compared with the civilian team who had to travel a significantly greater distance, the Chengdu Military Area Command, with about 280,000 soldiers and headquarters located right in Chengdu City, was disturbingly slow in entering the disaster areas.

    According to a Xinhua.net report on May 12, 2008: after the earthquake struck, about 5,000 officers and soldiers from the Chengdu Military Area Command and the General Unit of Armed Police in Sichuan rushed to Wenchuan, the area of the quake’s epicenter.

    About 3,100 officers and soldiers from the General Unit of Armed Police in Sichuan and the Third Hydropower General Team in Armed Police rushed to the disaster areas, carrying rescue equipment overnight to make their destination.

    These were the two fastest troops according to the CCP reports. The Chinese communist regime dispatched the first troop—consisting of 5,000 people—more than four hours after the earthquake hit. At the time it was already clearly known that it was a massive 7.8 scale quake with a death toll of over 10,000, and tens of thousands of people missing. Nine hours later, the communist regime added an additional 3,100 relief workers.

    According to a Xinhua.net report, the CCP’s airborne forces received orders at 12:30 a.m. on the 13th, and at 8:28 a.m., the first Y8 transport airplane took off. By the time it arrived in the Mianyang airport, several critical hours had passed. The CCP only began to mobilize airborne forces a full 10 hours after the quake.

    Digging: Civilians Use Cranes, Soldiers Use Bare Hands

    Moreover, it was reported that this civilian rescue team employed heavy construction equipment including cranes, bulldozers and excavators, which played a considerable role in disaster relief.

    Yet news photos show that many in the Chinese regime’s rescue troops are using their bare hands to dig out survivors. Like the Tangshan earthquake three decades ago, this national relief effort lacks the large equipment necessary for a disaster this immense.

    The CCP’s response actions to this earthquake disaster clearly reveal it did not do any disaster relief preparation while it tried to hush critical quake forecasting.