Chinese public urged to play bigger role in disaster management

The Chinese public should be more involved in community-based disaster prevention and relief, said a senior official with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Yang Fang, assistant country director of UNDP China, made the remarks at an ongoing three-day forum on community-based disaster management held in Mangshi City in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

In the face of disasters, Chinese people are accustomed to relying on aid from the government and lack awareness about their role and that of communities in disaster management, said Yang, who leads the Sharing and Learning on Community-based Disaster Management in Asia project.

Yang said that the importance of community-based disaster management in China became clearer after a devastating earthquake left more than 85,000 people dead or missing in Sichuan Province in 2008.

Yang's views were echoed by Shantanu Mitra, senior economic adviser of the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

"Communities could get sound preparation before the disaster and they could also help local residents save themselves before the professional rescue teams' arrival," Mitra said at the forum.

Besides, the well-trained disaster relief volunteers in the communities could provide assist for the governments' rescue teams, he added.

The forum, Community-based Disaster Management Best Practice Sharing Workshop in Asia, was attended by 66 community representatives from China, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The event is part of the project, which is aimed at helping low-income countries increase their resilience to natural disasters. Sharing and Learning on Community-based Disaster Management in Asia is a collaboration of the DFID, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) and the UNDP.

Though the concept of community-based disaster management is relatively new to China, progress has been made in recent years.

Wang Cong from the community office of Beijing's Shichahai, a popular tourist attraction with hundreds of bars, said at the forum that the community established a 216-strong voluntary rescue team in 2013 to prevent the risk of fires, stampedes and waterlogging.

In addition to assisting professional rescuers in disaster relief, the team members also train residents to cope with disasters themselves, Wang said.

In another successful case, residents in Zhongdong Village of Mangshi spent three months last year drawing a natural disaster risk map and pinpointing hazard sites.

The Chinese government has also poured resources into community-based disaster management, setting up 5,408 pilot communities since 2008, said Zuo Guizhou, an official with the disaster reduction division of MCA.

Asia is the world's most natural disaster-prone region. On average, natural disasters caused over 65,000 deaths in Asia and affected almost 220 million people each year between 2002 and 2011.

The Sharing and Learning on Community-based Disaster Management in Asia project was launched in January 2013 and the first phase will run to March 2015.