Chinese NGO rescue teams rushing to flood-hit areas in the north ‘told to wait for official clearance’
- Southern Weekly report on delays goes viral as northern China battles its heaviest rain in decades, with doubts raised over local disaster responses
- State-backed digital outlet The Paper points to November’s central directive on ‘orderly’ disaster relief as the likely cause for the red tape
The Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly reported on Tuesday night that NGO relief and rescue teams from outside Zhuozhou, a flood-hit city near the capital Beijing, were told they needed an invitation letter from the local emergency management bureau before setting off.
Another private rescue team based in the eastern province of Jiangsu told the newspaper that, “due to the disruption of mobile communications caused by the flooding, it took several hours for the invitation letter to arrive.”
The story went viral on Chinese social media on Tuesday night, raising questions about the efficiency of the local governments’ disaster response.
In a commentary published on Wednesday on their social media page, state-backed digital news platform The Paper pointed to a directive from the Ministry of Emergency Management in November as a possible source of the bottleneck.
The directive required all emergency management agencies of local governments to “ensure orderly disaster relief”, including keeping official records of relief efforts, with approval mandatory for all non-public relief teams wishing to travel to affected areas, the Shanghai-based news outlet said.
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