UNICEF sending medical supplies to landslide-hit Zhouqu County

BEIJING, 20 August 2010 – The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is rushing ambulances, life-saving medical supplies and vaccination equipment to land-slide devastated Zhouqu County.

The massive landslide hit the populated County seat in the early morning of 8 August. As of 16 August, the casualty toll stands at 1,254 deaths, 490 missing and 45,000 evacuated. The disaster also devastated schools, hospitals, water supply networks and other household and public infrastructure.

The Zhouqu County Maternal and Child Healthcare (MCH) Hospital has been flooded, and the entire building and all the medical equipment in it have been destroyed. Hospital staff have been dispatched to three temporary medical stations in three settlement areas with large displaced populations.

Zhouqu County is a UNICEF project county. In the aftermath of the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Zhouqu was among the most severely affected counties in Gansu Province. UNICEF responded to the needs of earthquake-affected children and women by introducing its Maternal and Child Health and immunization programmes in the county.

After the landslide emergency, UNICEF has been able to remain in close contact with counterparts at local and central levels. An urgent response to the needs of children and women affected is now underway.

UNICEF is supporting the resumption of services to pregnant women and children by rushing two ambulances and life-saving equipment for normal delivery and neonatal care. The first batch of supplies includes delivery beds, disposable delivery packs, neonatal rescue tables and infant incubators to the emergency zone. It is expected that those supplies will arrive within 7 to 12 days.

UNICEF China office is also mobilizing other urgently needed relief supplies to help restore services of healthcare, launch an emergency response immunization campaign, provide disease control supplies and to restore badly damaged immunization "cold-chain" facilities.

Funds raised by the Hong Kong Committee for UNICEF have made these relief supplies possible.