Qing­hai province earth­quake — report 2
The offi­cial toll fol­low­ing the 7.1 mag­ni­tude earth­quake in Qing­hai province in north west Chi­na as at 10am local time 18 April is 1706 deaths and 12,128 peo­ple injured. Local author­i­ties esti­mate that up to 90 per­cent of build­ings collapsed.
The Chi­nese Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion (CRSA) reports that ama­teur radio res­cue teams from An Hui, Qing­hai, Bei­jing, Shan­dong, Jiang­su, Sichuan provinces have joined the dis­as­ter mit­i­ga­tion efforts.
The res­cue and recov­ery efforts fol­low­ing the quake that occurred on 14 April are dif­fi­cult in the area which is a moun­tain­ous plateau more than 4,000 metres above sea lev­el that expe­ri­ences with very low overnight temperatures.
The ama­teur radio teams have set up VHF and UHF repeaters to pro­vide quick sup­port com­mu­ni­ca­tions, 7050kHz and 7060kHz are their main HF QRGs, and some­times 14270kHz in 20 meter band has been used.
The CRSA is bor­row­ing from its expe­ri­ences gained in the Great Sichuan earth­quake of two years ago. To a avoid traf­fic jam trav­el­ling to the earth­quake cen­tre area, the ham radio and oth­er sup­port teams are fol­low­ing the instruc­tions set by the government.
While com­mer­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions recov­ered on 15 April in six coun­ties of Yushu dis­trict, emer­gency ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ca­tions teams are con­tin­u­ing to assist the dis­as­ter mitigation.
The CRSA thanks those IARU mem­ber soci­eties such KARL, JARL, MARTS and HARTS and oth­ers who have giv­en their sup­port by trans­lat­ing Qing­hai earth­quake reports for their local web­sites and for all in help­ing keep the emer­gency fre­quen­cies clear.
— Report pro­vid­ed by Fan Bin BA1RB, CRSA Coor­di­na­tor IARU Region 3. Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee and Chair­man Jim Lin­ton VK3PC.