Air Raid Drill to Take Place in ShanghaiA trial air raid drill will take place this weekend in Jiading District, Shanghai, 30 kilometres west of the city centre.It will be the first such drill in Shanghai since 1950 when the Kuomintang attacked the city by air. Later on, there will be regular drills, which are designed to make residents more patriotic. "About 100 middle school students will take part in the drill,'' said Yang Zhengwei, director of Jiading's Civil Defence Office. To make sure the drill, on Sunday, goes smoothly without disturbing the normal activities of local people, the district government has notified them and explained the differences between the three types of alarm they will hear. One is the "pre-alarm" which rings for 36 seconds and is followed by a 24-second interval. This process will be repeated three times. Then the "air-raid alarm" will ring, 15 times, with each ring lasting for six seconds followed by a six-second pause. The "all-clear alarm" will last for three minutes to notify people that there is no more danger. The whole process will take 27 minutes. "The drill is to enhance people's patriotism and sense of national defence,'' said Yang Sen, director of the Municipal Civil Defence Office. August 13 was chosen because it was on that day in 1937 that the Japanese invaded Shanghai, Yang said. Another reason for having the drill is to check whether the distribution of air raid sirens and systems in Jiading work properly. Yang said Jiading was chosen for this trial because of its good size and population and its distance to downtown Shanghai. "It is only a trial this time,'' said Ji Weizu of the Municipal Civil Defence Office. "Later downtown Shanghai will conduct such trials regularly as ruled by the National Air Defence Law of PRC and the city's Civil Defence Regulations.'' Shanghai's air raid alarm system will be improved and examined in the following days, Ji said. Nanjing, the capital of East China's Jiangsu Province and Hefei of Anhui Province have specified a yearly date for air-raid drills. Many countries, such as the United States, Japan and Sweden, have similar drills regularly or other anti-disaster manoeuvres. |
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