As of 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, China had sent 133,000 troops and armed police into areas ravaged by the magnitude 8.0 earthquake for relief work, a senior military officer said in Chengdu on Thursday.
The army has mobilized another 45,000 militia and reservists to help with the rescue work, Lu Dengming, Chengdu Military Area Command deputy commander, told the media during the second press conference held by the army since the major earthquake on May 12.
The army had rescued 3,336 survivors and provided medical treatment for more than 305,000 victims, he noted, adding that they had also transferred 656,000 people and built 44 makeshift schools.
They also transported more than 506,000 tons of relief materials by land and airlifted another 5,360 tons to the disaster areas. At the same time, they repaired 4,281 kilometers of damaged roads, built over 119,000 tents and cleared up more than 2 million cubic meters of ruins.
As of Thursday, the troops and the armed police, including more than 6,000 officers and soldiers whose families were in the earthquake-struck areas, had made a relief donation of about 428 million yuan (about 61.1 million U.S. dollars).
(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2008)