Housed in two tents in Zhouqu's Chunjiang Square, the Zhouqu public security bureau reopened for work on Wednesday evening following the devastating mudslide that hit the county on Sunday.

The reopening of the bureau allowed the local police to shift their focus from disaster relief to public security management, the local police chief said.

"The reopening followed an order from headquarters this morning. We were previously preoccupied with the rescue effort," said Wang Renzhou, deputy director of the Zhouqu public security bureau.

"The major task facing us now is to take control of public security," said Wang, who has been assigned to manage the situation in the county seat.

The landslides, which buried the bureau's office and residence buildings early on Sunday morning, killed two policemen and left 12 missing, while 31 police cars and other office equipment was destroyed, Wang said.

The surviving 179 members of the county seat's police force, who have 34 missing relatives themselves, have resumed work following the disaster.

Wang said 10 police officers from his bureau and 80 members of the SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team from the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, as well as Chengdu in neighboring Sichuan province, are patrolling the streets of the county.

The rest are helping to man road checkpoints, along with distribution and collection points for disaster relief materials, such as bottled water and food.

"Public security is stable and no one has reported any irregularities," Wang said, while admitting that the mud and rocks, some as thick as two or three meters, made it easier to gain access to houses, especially those that no longer had windows.

"But we must remain vigilant and have to be prepared for the worst, since people from different backgrounds are flowing in as the roads in and out of the county have been restored," he said.

Liu Bo, an officer with the Chengdu SWAT team, told China Daily they had invited the principal of the Liangjiaba elementary school, where they are stationed, to deliver a lecture on the local Muslim and Tibetan ethnic groups, including their cultural and religious beliefs.

While Liu and his team had participated in the rescue operations for the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and the Yushu earthquake in Qinghai in April, he said the disaster zone in Zhouqu was "more striking".