China’s earth­quake – update #2
The earth­quake has killed 179 peo­ple and injured 6986. Hun­dreds of ama­teur radio oper­a­tors went to Ya’an help­ing dis­as­ter relief.
The dis­as­ter hap­pened as the Glob­al Sim­u­lat­ed Emer­gency Test was under­way head­ed in Chi­na by sta­tion BY3CQ and oth­ers – BG8EIU, BG8FCK, BG8DE, BG8FPB, BY8DX, BH8AHU, BA8IK and BG8EBB – who are now either help­ing on HF, VHF or in the dis­as­ter area.
Fan Bin BA1RB con­tact­ed this morn­ing Liu Hu BD8AAA who is in the epi­cen­tre at Lushan county.
The fol­low­ing updates are available:
1. Pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion is nor­mal in Ya’an and Lushan, the UHF and VHF repeaters work fine to pro­vide effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion. While in some remote rur­al areas, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion is still need­ed to be estab­lished. Ama­teur Radio teams are active­ly help­ing build up the communications. 

2. The gov­ern­ment has more expe­ri­ences to organ­ise the dis­as­ter relief, ama­teur radio oper­a­tors was organ­ised and pro­vide help based on gov­ern­ment needs. 

3. Because sud­den­ly there are too many vehi­cles com­ing into Ya’an city and Lushan coun­ty, the trans­porta­tion traf­fic con­di­tion is severe. There are 8 ama­teur radio teams, more than 200 ama­teur radio oper­a­tors help­ing local trans­porta­tion depart­ment to relieve traf­fic congestion.
The request to keep the HF fre­quen­cies of 3855kHz, 7050kHz and 14270kHz clear for dis­as­ter traf­fic remains.
The Sichuan ama­teur radio asso­ci­a­tion took imme­di­ate action with BA8DX (not BD8DX as ear­li­er report) and BD8AAA lead­ing a team head­ing to the dis­as­ter area.
— 73 de BA1RB / Fanbin