Officials: China orders probe of school collapses in quake

www.chinaview.cn [Xinhua] ^ | 2008-05-16

[brityank]

Officials: China orders probe of school collapses in quake

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has ordered local authorities to investigate the reasons why school buildings collapsed in the earthquake, said Yang Rong, director of the ministry's department of standards and norms, in an online interview on Friday.

    "If quality problems do exist in the school buildings, we will deal with the persons responsible strictly with no toleration and give the public a satisfying answer," said Han Jin, head of the development and plan department of the Ministry of Education in the interview.

Rescuers clean out the debris pressing on a trapped middle school student Yang Hong in quake-striken Beichuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 15, 2008. Trapped for nearly 60 hours, the Junior third grade student Yang Hong of Beichuan Middle School was finally rescued around the zero hour of May 15. His left foot was fractured, while mind remained fully conscious. (Xinhua/Chen Faliang)
Photo Gallery>>>

    "Our top priority at present is to save lives, but investigations into construction quality will also be launched," Han replied to online questions.

    The 7.8-magnitude quake that struck southwest China's Sichuan Province on Monday was known to have destroyed 216,000 structures in the province, including 6,898 school buildings, as of Wednesday, according to incomplete calculations, said Han.

    Accurate data is yet to come out, as damage has not been calculated in some of the most badly-hit regions such as Wenchuan County, the epicenter, and Beichuan County, he said.

    The quake hit at 2:28 p.m., when students were in class, leading to relatively severe fatalities among teachers and students, said Han.

    "We want to express our deepest condolences to the teachers and students who lost their precious lives in the quake," he said.

    The government would take the responsibility of rebuilding quake-stricken primary and high schools, while those deep in the countryside would be provided with operating expenses and salaries for teachers, said Han.

    The reason for the collapse of buildings, including schools, would be thoroughly probed and analyzed, as the force of the quake had far exceeded the anticipated degree on which the government established quake-resistance standards for buildings in those areas, said Yang.

Soldiers remove floor slabs during a rescue operation for pupils at the collapsed Jinhua Town Primary School in the quake-hit Jinhua Town of Mianzhu City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 15, 2008. (Xinhua/Liu Zheng) 
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    He said China had clear requirements on seismic-resistant designs for buildings in primary and high schools.

    Whether to raise the standard would be considered after rechecking the local quake intensity and investigating the damage, said Yang, adding that the latest scientific research and China's economic and social situation would also be taken into account.

    The quality of school buildings came under the spotlight as reports showed hundreds of students had been buried under crushed schools after the quake.

    Juyuan Middle School, located in an obscure town in Dujiangyan City neighboring Wenchuan, saw about 900 students and teachers buried when its school building collapsed in Monday's quake, and more than 60 were confirmed dead by Tuesday.

    As of 12 p.m. Thursday, 360 students had been rescued from the ruins of the Beichuan Middle School in the Beichuan County, with another 700 more still buried under ruins of the school's main building.

    The issue of collapsed school buildings received most attention from Internet users during Friday's interview.

    There were no national figures of casualties in schools yet.

    The Ministry of Education has told jolted schools to suspend classes according to local needs and, together with the Ministry of Finance, allocated an emergency fund of 50 million yuan (7.14 U.S. dollars) to assist teachers and students.

    "The government has always highly valued the work to improve anti-quake standards for construction projects," said Yang.

    China has upgraded its quake-resistant standards of buildings seven times since the 1950s, said Yang. They included two major revisions after a 7.8-magnitude quake in 1976 and a series of jolts, with the largest one measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, in 1966 in north China.

    China now has 48 special standards for houses, urban infrastructure, railways, roads, power grids, water conservancy works and other projects for the purpose of protecting them from quake damages, according to Yang.

    The worst quake in three decades in China had killed 19,509 people by 4 p.m. Thursday as official data show, while more than 50,000 were feared dead.

    Yang urged people in quake regions to stay away from buildings judged as dangerous or structures whose situation was unclear in case of aftershocks.

    Experts have been dispatched to help appraise the injuries of buildings that were not completely damaged in the jolt, said Yang.

[brityank]

The loss of so many children is a tragedy, but I wonder just how well our US schools would survive under similar conditions. I understand that the specifications were set for a Magnitude 5.5 earthquake, and masonry multi-story buildings need more than just rebar for safety.

[brityank]

New article on damage and pending investigation.

[Roccus]

Unreinforced brick buildings do not fare well in earthquakes. From the look of those pictures, that's what they were

[TigersEye]

It's hard to account for everything when building. If they built to withstand a 7.8 (not sure how possible that is) who is to say a bigger quake will never happen?

My heart goes out to all the many who are suffering there now.

[rawhide]

One report I read said that some local government buildings had withstood the quake, because they were built to the correct standards using metal reinforcement. It is a murderous shame the schools were not.

[TXnMA]

"If quality problems do exist in the school buildings, we will deal with the persons responsible strictly with no toleration and give the public a satisfying answer..."

Typical leftist dictatorship approach:

1. Find a scapegoat.

2. Punish the scapegoat severely.

3. Pump out the propaganda to placate the people.

Nothing about bringing in their brightest and best to learn from the damage and design safer buildings...

[kinsman redeemer]

I was in China some time ago. It was the first time I ever saw brick walls built WITH NO MORTAR.

It was just one of the things that amazed me.

[texas booster]

An Asian friend pointed out that these kids were born under China's “One Child” policy, even though it is probably less enforced in Western China.

I read that over 3,500 schools were damaged. With an average of ?? maybe 800 per school, that could be over 250,000 families who were directly affected by this quake, plus extended families.

Its the kind of social upheaval that even China's society could have a problem withstanding.

Parents will put up with almost anything, but to have so many children torn away from life or severely injured could be dangerous to the leadership.

Watch for scapegoats galore.

[spanalot]

And notice not a piece of rebar in sight in all that rubble.

[cmdjing]

I’m not sure how you are doing your math. 3500 schools with an average of 800 students per school isn’t 250,000 it is 2.8 million. In any case, just because 3500 schools were damaged doesn’t mean they all came crashing down with 800 kids in them each. The confirmed death toll is already over 20,000 with the missing and still buried possibly leading up to 50,000. About 20% of China’s population is aged 1-14% so let us assume a minimum of 10,000 children dead and an arbitrary maximum of 20,000.

The parents will do as parents have always done when they lose children. Cope by having more.

[brityank]

I fear that it is no different here, or in Britain. We (the US) had control until ‘the-powers-that-be’ decided that corporations had the same rights (under the Constitution and BoR) as a Man, but left the protections of corporations in place. Those extended to the government so no one can be held accountable.

[old-and-old]

honestly that works everywhere.

[old-and-old]

can you elaborate, what do you mean unreinforced?

[ken21]

they can start with the long beach quake of 1933:

masonry buildings collapsed, killing lots of people.

the state of california began earthquake standards for buildings.

[sam_paine]

And I don’t see any heavy equipment in sight either.

[IM2MAD]

FWIW, I found this image of fault lines in China. Unfortunately it’s sideways and I don’t know how to rotate it. There also some dates of, apparently, when some earthquakes took place.

http://serc.carleton.edu/images/eet/workshops/discussions/china_map.jpg

[Roccus]

Buildings that depend solely on brick, mortar and the patern in which the courses were laid. No steel reinforcement.

http://www.world-housing.net/uploads/brick_Masonry.pdf?pr=Array

[brityank]

Moving heavy equipment around when the roads are cut or damaged or blocked with landslides, plus you're talking about an area the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined for the major damage, and another with minor damage. It is a huge area.

WRT the construction; there is some rebar used, but probably not as much as should have been -- graft is endemic in all societies.

In this photo distributed by the official
Xinhua news agency, rescuers search for
students at Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan
Township of Dujiangyan City, about 100 kilo-
meters from the epicenter in Wenchuan county
of southwest China's Sichuan Province, on
Monday May 12, 2008.
(AP Photo/Xinhua, Jiang Yi)

[brityank]

Meant to ping you to this; thanks for your threads.

[Travis McGee]

Who needs rebar anyway? Concrete is strong enough. Just put the rebar money in your pocket, comrade!