Background
On April 20th 2013, a huge 7-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan County of Ya’an Prefecture in Sichuan Province. The quake affected 111 counties across 18 prefectures, among which the most extensively damaged counties were Lushan, Tianquan, Baoxing, Shimian and Yingjing, causing more than 250,000 houses destroyed or collapsed, 196 people died, 21 missing and over 2 million people affected.
In the past 5 years since the earthquake struck, Hong Kong Red Cross (HKRC) has actively responded to the needs of affected-areas at different stages, e.g. distributed relief supplies and provided medical supports during emergency response, supported to build safe homes through housing reconstruction programs, procured family kits for preparedness of emergency response, implemented community risk reduction projects to enhance individual and community resilience.
Donation Allocation
HKRC received over HK$16.8 million in donations to support relief, reconstruction, rehabilitation, disaster preparedness and risk reduction programmes in Ya’an Prefecture. Meanwhile, the areas affected by this earthquake were also affected by the 2008 Sichuan 5.12 Earthquake, we have allocated about HK$68.25 million from the residual donations of the 2008 Sichuan 5.12 Earthquake to support programmes in Ya’an Prefecture.
Up till now, Hong Kong Red Cross has completed its work in response to Ya’an Earthquake from phases of disaster response and reconstruction shifting towards facilitating community preparedness and risk reduction. In the future, based on local needs, HKRC will continue working to strengthen capacity of people in responding to disasters, and facilitate sustainable development of the communities.