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China revises relief plan to up disaster preparedness

Xinhua, March 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

China unveiled a revised disaster relief plan on Thursday to fine tune its ability to deal with rescue missions.

It is the second time the national disaster relief plan has been amended since the program was introduced in 2005. The other revision was in 2011.

The National Committee for Disaster Reduction is responsible for organizing and instructing disaster rescue, according to the new plan issued by the General Office of the State Council.

Duties and responsibilities of the committee's member agencies are also specified in the revised plan, including damage reporting, the release of news, and mobilizing the public to participate in rescue missions.

According to the relief plan, China has a four-level emergency response system, with level-I calling for the top emergency response while level-IV is the lowest.

Natural disasters left about 1,500 people dead or missing annually during the 2011 to 2015 period, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Disasters affected 310 million people each year during the same period, displacing more than 9 million and destroying 700,000 houses, it said, adding that annual direct economic losses were 380 billion yuan (58.3 billion U.S. dollars). Endi