Mental help targeted for victims of Shandong blast

Mental health experts on Friday continued their efforts to assist people involved in the recent deadly oil pipeline explosions in East China's Shandong province.

The blasts, triggered by a crude oil leak from an old pipeline in the Huangdao district of Qingdao on Nov 22, were traumatic to the local populace, and efforts are underway to help them, said Wang Ligang, an official of the city's mental health center.

The blasts took 55 lives, the city officials said on Monday.

By Thursday, a total of 149 injured people had been hospitalized in the city, according to the public health bureau.

As of Friday, the city had dispatched more than 30 experts on psychological intervention to evaluate mental health conditions among victims of the blast as well as people who had lost family members, it said.

Treatments have targeted the more than 60 people who suffered the most serious psychological problems.

Feng Yufang, a psychiatrist with the city's mental health center, began counseling victims a day after the blasts and said that psychological damage was severe.

"Many of the injured suffer from fear and anxiety, as well as insomnia. Some people who lost family members are distraught from grief. They all need timely and professional psychological counseling," she said.

Different treatments have been prescribed the various patients, she said.

For instance, a middle-aged man injured in the recent accident was severely depressed after his leg had to be amputated.

"He and his wife planned to have a second child before the accident. So I urged him to stick to his original plan to help him keep the will to live," said Feng.

Wang, of the city's mental health center, said people with the most serious mental problems will continue to be treated over the course of the next six months.

Zhu Zhuohong, a professor at the Institute of Psychology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, called for local authorities to offer long-term counseling to local residents.

"Generally speaking, about 90 percent of people involved in disasters will have acute stress reactions, including nightmares and anxiety, which will gradually disappear a month after the disaster," he said.

"But such symptoms may persist in about 15 percent one month later, and a few of them with long-lasting psychological issues may need ongoing treatment," he said.

The country should also redouble efforts to train more psychologists and psychological consultants, of whom there is an extreme shortage in many areas, he said.