Earthquake rescue

China has improved its disaster rescue abilities, especially air rescue, sea rescue, forest fire fighting and mine disaster relief, but the country still lags behind developed countries, especially in its capabilities in assisting victims following earthquakes, Shan said.

Yoshiteru Murosaki, a professor with the School of Policy Studies at the Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, said Japan issues warnings on earthquakes when the primary earthquake wave, which spreads fast but causes relatively less damages, is detected, providing a very short time for residents to take action, such as cutting off gas so that damages can be reduced to the minimum.

Shan repeated that the "speed report" provides critical seconds for the public to prepare for an earthquake, also allowing high-speed trains to brake, power plants to turn off generators and residents to turn off gas lines.

"In Japan, when the earthquake observing center monitors the primary wave, which spreads fast with less damages, it would immediately transfer the signal to radio and TV to let the public react about ten seconds before the secondary wave, which travels slower but usually can cause huge damages," he said.

"Rules in Japan also require airplanes to take off within half an hour after an earthquake has occurred to collect information of the hit areas," he said.

Murosaki said, "of course, we would receive public complaints if we made the wrong warnings. But anyhow, people's lives are the priority."

"It's like hitting a baseball. You could not just not hit it for fear of missing a ball. So you can not delay earthquake speed reports for fear you might make a mistake," he said.

A major city should take all steps to implement disaster relief programs, Shan said.

"You could go to see the reconstructed areas in Wenchuan. It now has more green areas and clean water so that people can easily mingle with nature. No high rises were built there after taking into consideration the potential impact of natural disasters," he said.

He called for more disaster shelters in proportion to community populations in cities and noted that shelters can exist like green areas while storing food reserves, broadcast systems and toilets.

"The city planners should not let buildings grow in height while providing no drainage systems underground or disaster-relief facilities," he said.

"I believe the technology to fight disasters is also the technology to build a city," Murosaki said.