"Although these tents are far from the comforts of their former homes, they will provide families with a dry place to sleep until more permanent structures are built," says Carl Naucler, head of delegation for the International Federation in Beijing.
"The Red Cross is also exploring how we can support the building of thousands of semi-permanent structures."
To date, the Chinese Red Cross has provided more than 18,000 tents to survivors from its regional warehouses to eight affected provinces. In addition to local medical teams on the ground, the German Red Cross has a 120 bed field hospital in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, staffed with doctors, technicians and nurses.
As well, additional international disaster relief workers will support the strong local response by the Chinese Red Cross already underway. Two of the five additional international relief workers have arrived in the affected area to look into needs for logistics, shelter and longer term recovery.
"Red Cross and Red Crescent experts will help coordinate and lead our support to the Chinese Red Cross," says Qinghui Gu, regional disaster management coordinator for the International Federation.
"The local Red Cross staff and volunteers are the backbone of our operation with the manpower and the local knowledge of the landscape, culture, and language to help get the appropriate assistance quickly to the most vulnerable people," he added.
More than 35,000 local Red Cross staff and volunteers have been working with over 120 rescue and health teams to provide medical attention, distribute tents, food, water, clothes and other relief items.
Over 200 Red Cross trucks are transporting relief items on a daily basis and over 500 Red Cross volunteers are also providing logistics support and counseling.
