By Keen Zhang

Amidst the devastation wreaked by the May 12 earthquake, a 12-member medical team from Tangshan operated in four medical tents alongside China's Red Cross tents and some local people's temporary tents. China.org.cn reporters visited the team in Jiulong Town, Mianzhu City in Sichuan Province yesterday.

On May 30, a second team led by Kan Zhisheng, Communist Party boss of Tangshan's Kailuan Medical Group, headed back to base camp in Jiulong to replace his first team.

Tangshan became known to the world on July 28, 1976 when a deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake flattened the city and caused 240,000 deaths.

After the 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan on May 12, 2008, the group's hospital and Tangshan's Red Cross immediately dispatched a first emergency medical team unit to quake-hit areas on the afternoon of May 13. After 26-hours of non-stop driving, four medical vehicles arrived at Jiulong, a total of 2,000 kilometers away from Tangshan.

"We have gone through this before. We feel empathy with the Sichuan people," Kan Zhisheng, one of the survivors from Tangshan earthquake, told China.org.cn yesterday.

The first Tangshan medical team has now treated over 3,300 people since arriving and working round the clock.