No prisoners died or escaped during the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit part of Southwest China's Sichuan Province on Saturday morning, the Ministry of Justice announced on Tuesday.
More than 80,000 prisoners in Sichuan have been evacuated, including some 2,000 inmates from a prison located in Mingshan county, Ya'an, the province's hardest-hit city.
"Prisons in Sichuan conduct evacuation drills on a frequent basis, which is why the evacuation was completed in an orderly fashion and no one was hurt or escaped," read the ministry's statement.
The statement said that the Sichuan Bureau of Prisons and the Sichuan Department of Justice dispatched a special work team to the quake zone 20 minutes after it occurred to coordinate the evacuation.
During the evacuation, only one prison staff was injured, and some prison structures were badly damaged, the Sichuan Daily reported.
Prisoners received counseling to help them get through the traumatic experience. Prisoners who have families in the quake zone were allowed to contact them by phone. A number of prisons have also organized training sessions on earthquake precautions for their inmates.
Engineers and civil experts were invited to the prisons in the quake zone to inspect facilities before prisoners can return to their original compounds, the statement said.
It also said experts must thoroughly evaluate the safety level of the buildings for fear aftershocks could topple the building.
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