Thirty years ago today, on May 22, 1995 (April 23, 1995 lunar calendar), a powerful earthquake struck the northern part of the Russian island of Sakhalin. On May 22, 1995, a powerful earthquake struck the northern part of the Russian Far East island of Sakhalin. According to reports, 230 oil wells, 45 kilometers of oil pipelines, 1 kilometer of gas pipelines and 11 oil stations in Neftegorsk were damaged, and preliminary estimates of damage were as high as 326 billion rubles. The most serious damage was the loss of life. The hardest-hit town of Neftegorsk was originally home to 3,200 residents, mainly oil workers and their families. The earthquake struck and about 2,500 people were buried under collapsed buildings. By the early morning of June 1, 401 wounded had been rescued, 550 bodies were recovered, and more than 2,000 people were still missing. On the second day of the earthquake, Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Shoigu led rescue workers to the disaster area from Moscow. Subsequently, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Soderzenowitz and several relevant ministers flew to the disaster area to urgently deploy earthquake relief and immediately decided to allocate 30 billion rubles for disaster relief. President Yeltsin declared May 31 a national day of mourning, and flags were flown at half-mast across the country on that day. Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, who was on vacation in Sochi, interrupted his vacation to hold a meeting of the government's disaster relief committee. In a few days, hundreds of healthcare workers rushed to the disaster area. Three times more blood donations went to the local ambulance station than usual. More than 50 planes were ferrying emergency medical personnel and relief supplies, and about 200 cranes, excavators and bulldozers were working around the clock to rescue victims under the rubble. The local temperature was reported to be below zero degrees Celsius at night, and the death toll was increasing. In recent years, Russia's research work on earthquakes has weakened, and some earthquake stations have been closed due to lack of funds. The Russian government has now decided to establish an agency for earthquake prediction and research in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and has proposed to cooperate with Japan to strengthen research on earthquake prevention and resistance in the Far East.