Implementing the Prime Minister's direction in Official Dispatch 75 dated August 4 on proactively preventing, combating and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters in the coming time, the Ministry of Information and Communications has just issued an official dispatch requesting the Departments of Information and Communications, units under the Ministry of Information and Communications and postal and telecommunications enterprises to prioritize the immediate implementation of a number of tasks.

Specifically, agencies, units and enterprises need to strictly implement the regime of leadership on duty, command on duty for natural disaster prevention and control, search and rescue and information response 24/7; closely monitor the development of natural disasters; promptly report the operation of the network and communication information serving the command and operation of natural disaster prevention and control and search and rescue work to the Command Board for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Search and Rescue and Civil Defense of the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The Telecommunications Department is assigned to be the focal point for receiving information and synthesizing the situation of natural disasters. This agency is also responsible for advising the Ministry's leaders on timely response plans, and directing mobile telecommunications businesses to send messages to subscribers in the disaster-affected areas when requested.

The Press Department, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information direct the mass media agencies to broadcast and report timely information on forecasts and warnings of natural disasters, and direct responses to natural disasters so that local authorities at all levels and people can monitor and update regularly. In particular, special attention is paid to reporting news articles warning people about the risk of floods, landslides and preventing diseases that may arise due to floods.

The Central Post Office is responsible for providing mobile communications for the Government's working group, the National Committee for Natural Disaster Response and Search and Rescue, and the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control to respond to natural disasters when requested.

For the Departments of Information and Communications, the priority tasks include: Directing provincial and municipal radio and television stations and grassroots radio stations to update disaster forecast bulletins from the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, increasing the duration and frequency of broadcasting disaster forecast bulletins to promptly notify people to proactively prevent and respond; acting as a focal point to direct local postal and telecommunications enterprises to coordinate and synchronously deploy timely response plans.

Meet the need for communication information to serve the direction and management of natural disaster prevention and control in the area; identify communes that have lost communication due to the impact of natural disasters to coordinate with the Department of Telecommunications to direct mobile telecommunications enterprises to deploy roaming between networks, ensuring smooth communication to serve the direction, management and response to natural disasters.

Postal and telecommunications enterprises are required to focus on immediately implementing measures to ensure the safety of communication systems to serve the direction and operation of natural disaster response, and to develop information response plans when incidents occur.

The Ministry of Information and Communications also directed postal enterprises to review the postal mail system and develop plans to ensure postal information security to serve the direction and management of natural disaster response. At the same time, fully equip labor safety protection for officers and employees on information rescue missions and ensure field communications.