Full text: China's Actions for Disaster Prevention and Reduction

BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The Information Office of the State Council, or China's cabinet, published a white paper titled "China's Actions for Disaster Prevention and Reduction" Monday. Following is the full text:

China's Actions for Disaster Prevention and Reduction

Information Office of the State Council of the People¡¯s Republic of China

Contents

Foreword

I. Natural Disasters in China

II. Strategic Goals and Tasks for Disaster Reduction

III. Construction of a Legal Framework, Institutional Setup and Working Mechanism Related to Disaster Reduction

IV. Enhancement of Disaster-reduction Capability

V. Public Participation in Disaster Reduction

VI. International Cooperation in Disaster Prevention and Reduction Concluding Remarks

¡¡¡¡Foreword

In recent years, natural disasters happened frequently around the world and have caused enormous losses of life and property to human society. They pose a common challenge to all the countries in the world.

China is one of the countries in the world that suffer the most natural disasters. Along with global climate changes and its own economic takeoff and progress in urbanization, China suffers increasing pressure on resources, environment and ecology. The situation in the prevention of and response to natural disasters has become more serious and complicated.

Always placing people first, the Chinese government has all along put the security of people's lives and property on the top of its work, and has listed the disaster prevention and reduction in its economic and social development plan as an important guarantee of sustainable development. In recent years, China has been comprehensively implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development, further strengthened legislation as well as the building of systems and mechanisms on disaster prevention and reduction, committed to building on disaster-prevention capacities, encouraged public contribution, and actively participated in international cooperation in this respect.

The devastating Wenchuan earthquake, which occurred on May 12, 2008, caused massive human casualties and property losses, and caused immeasurable sufferings to the Chinese people. In the wake of the disaster, the Chinese government decided to make May 12 "Disaster Prevention and Reduction Day," starting in 2009. This document has been written to mark the first anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake and greet China¡¯s first "Disaster Prevention and Reduction Day," with a review of the endeavors the Chinese government and people have made in disaster prevention and reduction.

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¡¡¡¡I. Natural Disasters in China

The natural disasters that China suffers from most have the following characteristics:

1. Diverse types. They include meteorological disasters, earthquakes, geological disasters, marine disasters, biological disasters, and forest and grassland fires. Except for modern volcanic activity, China has suffered from most types of natural disasters.

2. Wide scope of distribution. Natural disasters cause damages in different degrees to all of Chinese provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government). More than 70 percent of Chinese cities and more than 50 percent of the Chinese population are living in areas vulnerable to serious earthquakes, or meteorological, geological or marine disasters. Two thirds of China's land are threatened by floods. Tropical cyclones often batter the eastern and southern coasts, and some inland places. Droughts often occur in the northeast, northwest and north, with particularly serious ones common in southwest and south China. Destructive earthquakes with a magnitude of 5 or more on the Richter Scale have struck all the country's provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities). The mountainous and plateau areas, accounting for 69 percent of China's total land territory, suffer frequent landslides, mudrock flows and cliff collapses due to complicated geological conditions.

3. High frequency. Its monsoon climate has a strong impact on China, and causes frequent meteorological disasters. Local or regional droughts occur almost every year, while tropical cyclones, seven times a year on average, batter the east coast. As China lies right in the region where the Eurasian, Pacific and Indian Ocean plates meet, it suffers from frequent earthquakes due to still-active tectonic movements. Most of the quakes shaking China are continental, accounting for one-third of global destructive land quakes. Fires often break out in forests and on grasslands.

4. Huge losses. During the 19 years from 1990 to 2008, on annual average, natural disasters affected about 300 million people, destroyed more than 3 million buildings, and forced the evacuation of more than 9 million people. The direct financial losses caused exceeded 200 billion yuan. Floods in the Yangtze, Songhua and Nenjiang river valleys in 1998, serious droughts in Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality in 2006, devastating floods in the Huaihe River valley in 2007, extreme cold weather and sleet in south China in early 2008, and the earthquake that shook Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi and other places on May 12, 2008 all caused tremendous losses.

Now and for a fairly long time to come, the risks of extreme weather phenomena are increasing along with global climate changes. Owing to imbalanced distribution of precipitation, unusual temperature changes and other factors, the occurrences of floods and droughts, hot weather and heat waves, low-temperature rain, snow and sleet, forest and grassland fires, plant diseases, insect and animal pests may grow in number. The probability of strong and extra-strong typhoons, tempests and other disasters is quite high. The tasks of guarding against and preventing such geological disasters as mountain torrents, landsides and mud-rock flows brought about by heavy rains remain weighty. In addition, as a result of the earth's crustal movements, the danger of earthquakes is increasing.

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