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Rescue teams, many of whom do not speak Tibetan, are rushing to the mainly-Tibetan county of Yushu in the north-western province of Qinghai after it was hit by a 6.9-magnitude quake on Wednesday that has killed 791 people. -- PHOTO: AP
BEIJING - AROUND 500 Tibetan interpreters from across China have been mobilised to help rescue efforts in quake-hit Yushu, with the language barrier between locals and relief workers proving a problem.
The interpreters have been selected from six ethnic minority colleges nationwide, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the State Ethnic Affairs Commission as saying on Friday.
Rescue teams, many of whom do not speak Tibetan, are rushing to the mainly-Tibetan county of Yushu in the north-western province of Qinghai after it was hit by a 6.9-magnitude quake on Wednesday that has killed 791 people.
'Most of the injured are Tibetan and that makes treatment and enquiries about their medical conditions difficult due to problems of communication,' Wang Yu, a health ministry official, told reporters in Beijing.
Wei Jianmin, a member of China's international search and rescue team, said language barriers were hampering rescue work, according to Xinhua. The interpreters will stand by and act according to rescuers' needs, the report said.
Mandarin is taught in schools around China but many ethnic minorities in remote areas of the country have scant knowledge of the language, preferring to speak their own dialect instead. -- AFP
BEIJING - AROUND 500 Tibetan interpreters from across China have been mobilised to help rescue efforts in quake-hit Yushu, with the language barrier between locals and relief workers proving a problem.
The interpreters have been selected from six ethnic minority colleges nationwide, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the State Ethnic Affairs Commission as saying on Friday.
Rescue teams, many of whom do not speak Tibetan, are rushing to the mainly-Tibetan county of Yushu in the north-western province of Qinghai after it was hit by a 6.9-magnitude quake on Wednesday that has killed 791 people.
'Most of the injured are Tibetan and that makes treatment and enquiries about their medical conditions difficult due to problems of communication,' Wang Yu, a health ministry official, told reporters in Beijing.
Wei Jianmin, a member of China's international search and rescue team, said language barriers were hampering rescue work, according to Xinhua. The interpreters will stand by and act according to rescuers' needs, the report said.
Mandarin is taught in schools around China but many ethnic minorities in remote areas of the country have scant knowledge of the language, preferring to speak their own dialect instead. -- AFP
