Ministry of National Defense

BEIRUT, Feb. 20 -- The 21st Chinese peacekeeping construction engineering company to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) held an earthquake relief drill codenamed Blue Helmets Rescue-2023 on February 16 to test the emergency rescue capability of the contingent.

Affected by the strong earthquake in southern Turkey, Lebanon also experienced several earthquakes recently. The drill was carried out in the scenario of an earthquake disaster in the peacekeeping mission area, where the UNIFIL headquarters ordered the Chinese contingent to carry out road emergency repair and cleaning, as well as search and rescue of other UNIFIL peacekeeping troops.

Launched at 4:00 am local time, the peacekeepers were well organized in special teams to carry out missions at different sites. The mechanical rescue team was responsible for road clearing operations, and the manual rescue team and the medical service team carried out personnel search and rescue and emergency rescue evacuation in close cooperation.

The nearly-four-hour drill completed ten subjects including emergency evacuation, emergency dispatch, road emergency repair, and personnel search and rescue.

Lv Guangming, deputy head of the contingent, said that as the only construction engineering contingent in the Lebanon mission area, the contingent features professional and well-equipped personnel for earthquake relief tasks. Through the drill, it has been fully prepared to deal with similar emergencies.