tion of Cantonese food. As reported last year, this difficulty is being progressively overcome by making these foods into noodles; facilities for turning out noodles have multiplied steadily; Catholic Relief Services and two of the Kaifong Associations which manufacture their own noodles produced over 34 million pounds of noodles between them during the year. The distribution of reconstituted liquid milk to children who would not otherwise have any milk proved increasingly popular. This service, provided by Church World Service at ten milk bars, and by the Lutheran World Federation's milk bar and mobile van, continued to be much in demand. Nearly 315,000 lbs. of milk powder was supplied by the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada during the year, the Department being responsible for distribution to Government schools, boys' and girls' clubs and residential welfare institutions.
CHAPTER X
EMERGENCY RELIEF
51. Natural disasters in Hong Kong are unfortunately still all too frequent but are now less numerous than they were, since extensive hutted squatter areas are decreasing as a result of large scale resettle- ment over the last few years. Although the fire hazard posed by closely grouped wooden huts still exists, it is now confined to smaller areas.
52. Emergency relief is provided by two experienced teams of workers located one on either side of the harbour, drawn from staff who also have the normal day-to-day duty of relieving destitution, as described in the preceding Chapter. Immediately news of a disaster is received, the team concerned is despatched to the affected area to register the victims; this involves getting someone in the neighbourhood, such as the staff of the Resettlement Department (in the case of squatters, who are all registered), the Kai Fong or neighbourhood association in the area, the police or sometimes a local shopkeeper to identify and vouch for each applicant; this is a necessary first step. Within a few hours a hot meal is served and free feeding continues for a maximum period of a month, either in the form of two hot meals a day, or in some cases of dry rations, if the people are still able to cook their own food. Thereafter, individual applicants' circumstances are reviewed and feed- ing may continue in cases of hardship, if considered essential to prevent destitution.
53. During the year nearly 40,000 victims of natural disasters were registered and over 1,400,000 free meals and 84,000 diets of dry rations
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