China's Red Cross allocates 1.5 bln yuan for 2023 disaster relief

BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) said Friday it had responded to emergencies 21 times in the course of 2023, dispatching 172 rescue teams to emergency front lines and allocating over 1.53 billion yuan (about 215 million U.S. dollars) in terms of money and supplies for disaster relief.

The society added that as a result of RCSC efforts to improve the regional cooperation mechanism for Red Cross emergency rescue, a new emergency rescue pattern featuring unified command from the RCSC, as well as coordination and cooperation among Red Cross organizations of different Chinese regions, had been established.

This improved regional cooperation mechanism played a crucial role in relief operations last year, including the geological disaster in Wanzhou in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, the floods in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the 6.2-magnitude earthquake in Jishishan in the northwestern province of Gansu, the RCSC said.

The Red Cross network across the country now boasts over 1,000 rescue teams at various levels with a total of around 100,000 members, making it an essential part of China's national emergency rescue system.