Sichuan Quake Relief (SQR)

Report by Rainy, volunteering for SQR (interpreting/coordinating).

Swedish Rescue Service Agency (SRSA) donated 1093 military tents to Guangyuan, Sichuan. This is the second batch of tents that they donated where the first was an alliance-to-alliance while this one is a government-to-government one.

The donation consists of 716 accommodation tents, 63 storage tents, 203 command tents and 111 medical tents. The donation arrived in Guangyuan Lizhou District, and was unloaded into a disused factory warehouse on 14th of June by factory workers.  Three staff from SRSE were in Guangyuan from the 15th to 19th of June with two Chinese translators.

The team taught eight volunteers how to set up the four different kinds of tents. The volunteers are either going to be directing tent construction directly or teaching more volunteers for distribution in further away counties or areas — for example, villages around the severely damaged county Qingchuan and certain mountain villages along the damaged express way from Guangyuan to Qingchuan along the biggest branch of Jialing river.

The distribution plan is going to be decided by Guangyuan city council, and executed by Guangyuan Lizhou District Civil Affairs Bureau along with the city Civil Affairs Bureau. The SRSA team also provided digital files of detailed manual for all four kinds of tents in Chinese and handed over more than seven hundred ready-printed manuals for the accommodation tents from Sweden, with photos and English instructions as reference.

All tents were organised by coloured spray paint in Sweden and sorted into piles by the team in Guangyuan with the help of their factory workers. The tents are donated with intention of providing temporary shelter for families, schools and medical purpose. All tents came with a heater which can also be used for cooking.  The accommodation tents also came with clothes-drying components above the stove.

Deputy Chief of the district bureau Mr Fei said that the tents will be really good for accommodation in remote villages where have people lost their houses but won’t move away from the place, and for village schools which both do not have the flat ground for prefabricated houses to stand on, and do not have accessibility for prefab houses to be transported in recent future.  Mr Fei also said the tents will be really good for winter sheltering for areas that need to stay in tents for a longer time.

Tent distribution will be followed up with the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau and Mr Xie. The condition of the buildings within the Guangyuan City is not too bad. Mainly due to fear of aftershocks, quite a lot of people are living in self-constructed tents on the main streets, some in disaster relief or donated tents.

In the older part of the town an area of about three blocks of houses was quite seriously damaged. The buildings had major cracks were clearly seriously distorted/crooked but have not collapsed.  The city did not suffer large numbers of deaths or injuries but large numbers of buildings were identified by experts as in danger. An owner of a seriously damaged house expressed her worry of losing the house, which is everything they own. Most people are able to get most of their belongings out of their houses. Shops are open, although one consequence of the earthquake has narrowed the range of products on sale.  No internet cafes are open at this stage but internet cards are working.