Xia Guofu, commander of the Sichuan Provincial Military Area Command, Vice Commander Li Yazhou and six leading comrades from the Aba military sub-district led more than 300 people to arrive at Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province at 12:00 on the thirteenth. This was the first Chinese army unit to enter Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the earthquake, for rescue operations. After six hours of intense rescue efforts, they had saved more than a thousand injured people whose lives were in danger in the Wenchuan county seat.
After Xia Guofu and his team arrived at the Wenchuan county seat, they immediately divided into six emergency rescue assault teams and rushed to the county seat and relevant severely affected townships to carry out urgent rescue work. Xia Guofu inspected collapsed houses in the county seat and treated more than three hundred injured people together with rescue team members. He also consoled more than four hundred victims who lacked food and water. Li Yazhou, Commander Xia and Political Commissar Zhang from the Aba military sub-district, leading the other five assault teams, have already gone to various towns and streets to arrange accommodation for the victims, treat more than a thousand critically injured people, and organize more than three thousand two hundred people to fight against the disaster and help themselves.
According to Ye Wanyong, political commissar of the provincial military area command, by 17:00 on the thirteenth, reinforcements will continue to arrive to implement large-scale rescue operations, making every effort to reduce the loss of life and property of the masses to the lowest point.
Currently, the morale in the epicenter disaster area is relatively stable, and social order is well maintained. (End)