Period covered by this update: 25 April – 3 May 2013.
Summary: CHF 400,000 was allocated from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) on 25 April 2013 to support the National Society in delivering assistance to some 20,000 beneficiaries.
A total of 196 people were killed, 13,484 injured and 21 are missing after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit China's Sichuan province at 8.02 a.m. Beijing time on 20 April[1]. The epicentre of the quake was near Lushan county, Ya’an city at a depth of 13 km. A total of 237,655 persons have been displaced and over two million people have been affected across 19 prefectures and 115 counties of Sichuan province.
This DREF operation, aiming to enable the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) to assist 5,000 most-affected and displaced families, will be implemented over six months and will be completed by 31 October 2013. A final report will be shared 90 days after the end of the operation, i.e. by 31 January 2014.
The DREF operation is currently in progress and as of May 3 has assisted around 2,000 families (8,000 individuals) with provision of family/kitchen (note: in Chinese context it was named as family kit; in IFRC logistic standards, it is called kitchen sets) and hygiene kits, access to sanitation facilities. First batch of 2,000 family/kitchen kits and 1,000 hygiene kits supported by DREF have been distributed in Longmen township, Lushan county. The impact of this assistance is that immediate needs of some affected community members are met and it has contributed to preventing spread of water-borne diseases. The DREF operation is being assisted by two emergency response teams (ERT) of RCSC in addition to RCSC staff, local Red Cross volunteers and IFRC staff.
This DREF has been fully replenished with generous contributions from Canadian Red Cross, CIDA, Danish Red Cross, DG ECHO, Japanese Red Cross, and Mondelez International. Details of all donors can be found on: www.ifrc.org/dref.
