Chi­na earth­quake report to GAREC-08 

The emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vid­ed by China’s radio ama­teurs in the after­math of the dev­as­tat­ing mag­ni­tude 8 Sichuan earth­quake has now end­ed, although some remain on stand­by for rapid re-acti­va­tion if needed.
IARU Region 3 Chi­nese Radio Sports Asso­ci­a­tion (CRSA) dis­as­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion liai­son Fan Bin BA1RB reports that sev­er­al hun­dred hams took part to help the dis­as­ter recov­ery and relief efforts.
It began almost imme­di­ate­ly after the huge ‘quake on the 12th of May and con­tin­ued through until the 13th of June. A num­ber of radio ama­teurs trav­elled into the epi­cen­tre area, a dif­fi­cult task due to earth­quake dam­aged roads, to set up communications.
In the ear­ly days long dis­tance tele­phone lines were either cut or con­gest­ed and this is where ama­teur radio HF links were used, includ­ing one in the provin­cial city of Cheng­du to give the Red Cross a link to Beijing.
VHF and UHF repeaters were in heavy use, both those which sur­vived the quake and oth­ers pressed into ser­vice to pro­vide much need­ed local com­mu­ni­ca­tions includ­ing front line res­cue and recov­ery activity.
Ama­teur radio was used to pro­vide coor­di­nat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions for cars that were used to fer­ry sup­plies and trans­port the wounded.
Ama­teur radio oper­a­tors across the coun­try made dona­tions of equip­ment and sup­plies and the CRSA thanks them and all inter­na­tion­al radio soci­eties and indi­vid­u­als for the sup­port given.
The CRSA has pro­duced a slide pre­sen­ta­tion overview of the role emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vid­ed dur­ing the dis­as­ter, and what it pro­pos­es for the future.
This was pre­sent­ed by the IARU Region 3 Chair­man, Michael Owen VK3KI,
to the 4th Glob­al Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Con­fer­ence (26 & 27 June) in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

GAREC-08 organ­is­ers and the con­fer­ence del­e­gates were most pleased to see the CRSA pre­sen­ta­tion and learn more about the role played by ama­teur radio after the Sichuan earthquake.

- Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU Region 3 Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.