A parachute company of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has canceled its action to rescue the earthquake-hit Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, due to heavy rainstorms in the mountainous area, according to the PLA headquarters.
The 72-member paratroop company aboard the Air Force Plane No.4019 arrived at the Mianyang Airport Tuesday, at 10:55 am.
Two paratroop divisions of the PLA, comprising 9,000 soldiers and officers, will be sent to the disaster-hit areas in the coming days, according to Chen Hui, commissar of one of the divisions.
Six hundreds paratroopers are ready to be parachuted to the worst-hit Wenchuan County, if necessary, Chen said.
The paratroop divisions received the order from the PLA headquarters Tuesday, at 0:30 am, and they began boarding transport aircraft at 8:28 am.
One of the divisions came from its base in Kaifeng City, Henan Province, central China, said Deng Mingzhong, head of the staff of the paratroop division.
In 1998, the 4,500-member division joined in the country's largest disaster relief action to rescue millions of flood-hit people across the country in 1998, according to the officer.
There have been few media reports about Chinese paratroops, though they are not new to the public.
In 2007, Chinese paratroopers made excellent performances when they participated in a Sino-Russian Joint Military Exercise, together with the newly-armed parachuted personnel carriers.
It is the first time that the PLA paratroops have been sent to rescue in disaster-relief work.
Source: Xinhua
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