32,000 rescuers working across Kazakhstan today (PHOTOS)

ASTANA. KAZINFORM Kazakhstan's rescue service marks its 20th anniversary this year. To date, the Emergencies Committee with its territorial and subordinate divisions, workforce and means represents a powerful system employing 32,000 highly qualified personnel.

On October 19, 1995 the President signed a decree "On improvement of the structure of the central executive bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan" providing for establishment of a State Emergencies Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan as a central executive agency authorized in natural and man-made emergencies and civil defense of the country. At the time of its founding, the Committee was functioning of the ground of the State Commission of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Emergencies and the Republican Headquarters of Civil Defense. The civil defense system of Kazakhstan has undergone significant changes over 20 years of history. Thus, the State Emergencies Committee was renamed as the Emergencies Committee. Later it was restructured as the Agency and then as the Ministry Emergencies of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Today the Emergencies Committee operates as part of the Kazakh Internal Affairs Ministry. Nowadays, the Emergencies Committee comprises 16 firefighting and emergencies-rescue services with 418 firefighting divisions, 16 operational-rescue troops, 5 regional airmobile operational-rescue troops and a republican operational-rescue troop. Crisis Management Centre, Disaster Medicine Centre, 40 medical-rescue points, Kokshetau Technical Institute, Kazselezashita, JSC Kazaviaspas and railway hospitals of disaster medicine are functioning in this system too. More than 32 thousand highly experienced and qualified people are employed by the structural divisions of the Emergencies Committee to date, an official statement of the Committee reads.