Mongolia holds disaster drills as international disaster reduction day comes

Mongolia held on Friday a series of disaster prevention drills one day before the International Day for Disaster Reduction. The capital city\'s emergency authorities conducted a fire drill at an office building in downtown Ulan Bator to better train the staffs working inside how to safely and quickly escape when a fire breaks out. Meanwhile, the local emergency body also held a number of earthquake drills at many of the capital\'s middle schools, kindergartens and hospitals. These emergency exercises, which would be held many times every year, were designed to educate the public on the knowledge of disaster prevention, self-protection and rescue. Burin Mandakh, director of a local hospital, said his hospital has more than 220 medical workers, yet they have to deal with the medical problems of over 100,000 residents living in the district. He added that more of such drills were badly needed, especially for patients. Some hospital staffs also said that these drills could help them provide necessary services when an emergency erupts so that the affected people could suffer less. The 64th session of the U.N. General Assembly held in 2009 adopted a resolution that dedicated the day of Oct. 13 in every year since 2009 as the International Day for Disaster Reduction.