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Introduction
At 14:48 on 12 May 2008 an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 struck the Wenchuan area of Sichuan province, China. 1 The affected population was 46.24 million, spread over 10 provinces involving 417 counties, 4667 towns and 48 810 villages. Ultimately 15.1 million people have required resettlement. Half (10243/19698, 52%) of all health facilities were destroyed or damaged. There were at least 69 207 people killed, with a further 18 194 reported missing 3 weeks later. There were 374 216 people injured by the earthquake, almost 100 000 of whom were hospitalised (26.7%). 2 Medical staff in the most affected areas of Wenchuan, Lixian, Maoxian, Pingwu and Qingchuan treated 28 340 injured patients in 72 h. Two-thousand four-hundred and eighty-three people died in hospital, accounting for 2.5% of the total number hospitalised.
The decision to offer/receive UK medical assistance was taken at a Sino/British political level and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office funded the immediate response. The request to the medical team came through 3 days after the earthquake and the team were in country 48 h later. This study describes the team's experience during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and the following 18 months.
The Chinese response
Local emergency services responded within a few minutes, with a countywide response within 30 min. Within 6 h of the earthquake, 147 medical rescue teams (714 persons) were at the epicentre and further teams reached less affected areas within 12 h, rising to 1424 first line medical staff on scene by 24 h.
Thirty-one medical teams from outside the Province of Sichuan were mobilised, arriving on scene 24-48 h after the 'quake. By the third day there were 4880 Chinese personnel from outside Sichuan at work in the earthquake area.
Teams from other countries (Taiwan, Russia, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, Macau, Germany, Cuba, UK, France, USA) began arriving in China on 15 May and stayed until 7 June. Chinese authorities monitored their input and reported that they treated 24 410 cases at 11 sites in Sichuan, carrying out 629 surgical operations (1.7% of total). They provided nursing to 3204 patients and did 3072 clinical rounds. They provided 377 consultations to Chinese colleagues and trained 2767 staff over 73 sessions. They set up three mobile hospitals,...