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) 
Photo Gallery>>>

 

    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]

So far they've had 62 quakes ^ between 4 and 6 since the main one last Monday.

[brityank]

I’ve seen a lot of comments about the ‘shoddy’ construction of their schools, but in reality there is a vast difference in the manner of building structure between a school and an apartment/housing complex. Houses and apartments have relatively small rooms and added support walls, whereas schools tend to have much larger rooms with little internal support. Not that that should excuse shoddy design, but it does explain some of the reason a school might not survive while a similar sized apartment will. Just my uneducated opinion.

[stlnative]

JUST RELEASED...

Major floods may hit Chaping County at any time
2008-05-17 02:01:51 ET SINA English

BEIJING, May 17— According to reports released by the “Dipper 1” satellite, aftershocks in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province continuously happen. The water level of Haizi is rising rapidly and major floods may occur at any time, Xinhua said.

At present, local victims have abandoned their home and were transferred to the higher ground. 46 seriously injured people need emergent medical help.

http://english.sina.com/china/1/2008/0516/159588.html

---

7,000 people still trapped in Chaping County
2008-05-17 01:49:52 ET SINA English

BEIJING, May 17—The rescue work of Chaping County, Sichuan Province went slow for the seriously damaged conditions. As by May 17, more than 7,000 people are still trapped under collapsed buildings according to CNS.

The great hit occurred on May 12 almost leveled the Old Street in Chaping County to the ground. 95% of its buildings were collapsed. A rescue relief worker said:“in some places, five bodies were found after one shovel.”

Up to now, there are 242 people identified killed, two missing, and 500 injured in Chaping County.

http://english.sina.com/china/1/2008/0516/159584.html

[stlnative]

Chang Haizi lake, Jiulong, Sichuan

[Rome2000]

The rebar is there, its just that the Chinese use # 1/1000’s

[stlnative]

China’s Ministry of Water Resources has dispatched teams to Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces to prevent dams that were damaged by the devastating earthquake from bursting and endangering the lives of residents. Several dams are believed to be imminently threatened in the key region where the Tibetan plateau meets the Sichuan plain.

One of the worst-damaged cities is Dujiangyan, site of multiple dams and weirs that irrigate some 3 million hectares. The Dujiangyan irrigation works date from the third century BC, when engineers split the Min river where it falls from the mountains, and diverted it to irrigation channels along the plain.

“Upstream on the Min river is an important reservoir called Tulong which is already imperilled,” He Biao, deputy party chief of Aba prefecture, told reporters. “If the danger intensifies, this could affect some power stations downstream.”

The quake caused the 760-megawatt hydropower station at Zipingpu, nine kilometers upstream of Dujiangyan, to collapse. It began operations in 2006, as part of China’s program to develop its poorer western regions.

Water is being released at 50% above average levels to relieve pressure on the cracked dam, the Ministry of Water Resources said on its Web site. “If Zipingpu develops a serious safety problem, it could bring disaster to Dujiangyan city downstream,” where half a million people live, the ministry said.

Experts from China’s earthquake bureau raised concerns about the Zipingpu dam’s location near a fault zone before it was built in 2000, according to Aviva Imhof, the China program director for the International Rivers Network, a group that opposed construction of the plant. She cited leaked transcripts of a September 2000 meeting about the issue.

The flow of the Jialing River has been blocked by landslides in Huixian county, in southeastern Gansu’s Longnan region, with rubble holding back 600,000 cubic meters of water.

Cracks on the famous Yuzui or “fish mouth” levee further downstream, the crux of the Dujiangyan irrigation system, are not serious, the ministry says. The massive Three Gorges Dam, hundreds of kilometers down the Yangtze River from the epicenter, was not affected by the quake, officials with the China Three Gorges Project Corporation said. (IHT, May 15; Reuters, May 14)

[chinaboy]

Thanks for your posting，I will pay more attention to your articles，and I would like to spend some time to reply your post seriously later. I would do it later when I have more time.（after my school exam）Best wishes！And pray for all the people who are suffering the earthquake. Thanks again.

[stlnative]

Interesting response comment about the Zipingpu Dam I got off a blog... A detail regarding Zipingpu. The Zipingpu dam is not solid cement: it is a rubble-filled, cement-cased structure. This type of dam is far more prone to delayed failure than a classic cement dam. The fact that it has at least one 4″ crack in the casing almost guarantees that interior has shifted significantly. Comment by Guy - May 15, 2008 at 11:03 am

[Travis McGee]

Thanks for your excellent posts and photos.

[sam_paine]

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

Well, 'brit/yank,' funny you should mention Texas & Oklahoma.

Because THAT is exactly my point and exactly one of the primary things that differentiates heartland America and central 'redneck' areas of Britain from China and Burma and such.

In these 'isolated rural' areas of our western world, every farm/ranch has at least one backhoe, skid-steer or at least tractor with a hay-bale front-loader for lifting/moving 'stuff.'

I've spent enough time in China to see this dramatic difference, and the picture of 30 chinese workers manhandling something that a single American farmer could rig up with a chain and save his neighbor in minutes, well, that's why I remark on that picture.

It jibes with what I have experienced in China, and how I LIVE in Texas.

Frankly, as an anglo-Texan, I'm pretty pissed off at your snide comment equating British construction with what's going on over there in Sichuan schools.

If you had any experience with the difference between Singapore's society and Hong Kong's society and ethics, molded heavily by English culture, and compared it to remnants of what Chinese culture and society remains to this day in the backwater interior of China, you'd check yourself on such denigration of your own heritage; and frankly, if the British had ventured on in with the Opium back then and 'taken' more land, there'd be fewer dead children in Sichuan today. Bank it.

I think western society should expect more respect, even from a yankee. =)

[TigersEye]

If I understand the basis of your argument correctly; if the British had only spread opium addiction more widely throughout China more children of Sichuan would have survived this 7.8 earthquake today?

[brityank]

Because THAT is exactly my point and exactly one of the primary things that differentiates heartland America and central 'redneck' areas of Britain from China and Burma and such.

In these 'isolated rural' areas of our western world, every farm/ranch has at least one backhoe, skid-steer or at least tractor with a hay-bale front-loader for lifting/moving 'stuff.'

So your point is, that because the peons in China have not had the money or the ability to get the type of equipment you have, somehow they are to blame?

Real big heart you have there.

It jibes with what I have experienced in China, and how I LIVE in Texas.

I'd like to see you live under the same constraints most of them live under -- little money, oppressive taxes, others deciding what and when you will plant and grow -- and see just how long you'd last before running off to the nearest city to flip burgers.

Frankly, as an anglo-Texan, I'm pretty pissed off at your snide comment equating British construction with what's going on over there in Sichuan schools.

Not sure what I said up-thread that got your shorts cranked, but few places in the world have as good a building code due to experience as the US, and even here I'm damn sure Philly or Wilmington or Baltimore would suffer more serious damage than most any area in California in that level of quake. I left Britain in '58, and never heard of a quake until coming here, they just weren't in my world-view.

Are you the portrait of "The Ugly American"?

[brityank]

Thanks, TigersEye.

I saw a couple of reports that there are several mountain slides that have blocked rivers up above some of the dams. Pray they don't break through suddenly or the dams downstream could breach all the way to the Changdu plain.

[TigersEye]

I sure hope that doesn’t happen but in all honesty I don’t see how that isn’t the most likely outcome. Natural dams like that don’t usually hold.

[stlnative]

Student ID tags are placed on the ground at the Juyuan Middle School, in Dujiangyan, in China's southwest Sichuan province Saturday, May 17, 2008. All but a handful of the school's 900 students were killed when the school collapsed in Monday's earthquake. China is to launch an investigation into why almost 7000 schoolrooms were destroyed and thousands of children killed in the earthquake, after accusations that the schools were shoddily built.(AP Photo/Greg Baker)

[pandoraou812]

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

So does mine. Prayers for the victims & suffering people.

[sam_paine]

Let me start with this.

I have discussed this recent tragedy with some people I have worked with in Shenzhen (Outside Kowloon). Guess what? I asked them where they might be sending donations, (as I would think they'd have a better chance at finding a real, low overhead operation that would really get some help in...) And what did one say? "Oh. I would not send anything because the government will help, and besides, any additional money would never get to the people."

Not sure what I said up-thread

Primarily this:

TXnMA outlines the Chinese response as: "Typical leftist dictatorship approach:"
...and you respond.. "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."

IN SHORT: NO. Things ARE NOT the same in US/UK as in China...on any level.

So two things: (1) your equivalence of Chinese and US/British civil engineering/disaster response/etc and (2) an out-of-the blue anti-corporatist screed bashing the tort system in the West.

So the former can be excused as a lack of actual experience and knolwedge of both Chinese culture and Society, as well as ignorance of actual western building codes and even typical non-code structures.

But if anything, you've got it completely backwards on corporations. In China, corporations and the government are unassailable in civil actions, in the West, corporations are held to much higher standards than individuals and their products over time show this quite clearly.

The chinese cultural and societal values are the basic difference here. This is an example of the superiority of the corporatism and the relative wealth as a result of moving away from those ancient cultural and social values in those areas in the world which Great Britain "enslaved" for "greedy imperialist" gain.

I've lived in China. I've worked in Korea and Japan and Singapore. They approach and embrace the west's values somewhat in that order to generalize greatly. In Korea, otherwise pleasant people have told me, repeatedly, that they cringe at and are revolted by a reunification of their North Korean brothers. Why? Because it would put a huge drag on their economy to bring all those people up above poverty. IOW, cheaper to send them some rice shipments and let them be ground under by the dictator than to have all that wage pressure. Out of life is out of mind. It is disgusting.

I refer you to the quote I started with regarding Chinese and their regard for CHINESE. "Real big heart?" You have NO IDEA what you are talking about.

Human life is simply not valued the same way in Chinese culture as it is here. And in Singapore, Korea, and Japan...and even in Hong Kong, there's a much better attitude, such as the concept of letting emergency ambulances tthrough an intersection first because a human being is hurt and needs help. Seems basic to you and me. IT IS NOT a basic culturally accepted concept in "non-westernized" areas of China (that is, almost everywhere). There is an animalistic attitude that hurt people had better buck-up or get run over.

As for your building and corporate issues.

Outside of city limits in the USA, there ARE NO BUILDING CODES. You can live in a tent. You can live in a trailer made out of popsicle sticks if you want. But let's take fire safety. The cheapest building materials are made by the huge evil corporations like Georgia PAcific. Or USG for sheetrock. They only make it in sheets 96" tall...and the cheapest studs for making a wood wall are 92-5/8" long because the evil corporations simply make it for the mass city-building-code market. They do this because the standard code wall puts a stud on a 2x4 floorplate, and then a double layer of 2x4s at the top plate and kingplate, and voila, the sheetrock only fits if you do it that way.

So the cheapest and only natural way to build a wall, for example, in the rural areas of America, is with the same materials and methods which have been tested for civil engineering standards and, more importantly, UL fireproofing codes.

Sheetrock, the cheapest material you can use to finish a wall, also provides a uniform flame suppression capability....long enough for you to notice your couch is on fire before the wall collapses.

THIS IS NOT THE SAME IN CHINA. They may use lath and plaster, made from whatever is available locally, or wood panels or painted cloth as we did a century ago....because the uniform, 'corporatist' infrastructure is just not there.

So the sprawling expanse of cookie-cutter corporate subdivisions may be boring and whatever, but you can know that your likelihood of dying crushed in a fire like in the 1906 San Fran earthquake is extremely unlikely.

I'm sorry that your comments triggered such a response, but they are an example of our culture being so advanced, that typical people become ignorant of their own progress.

[sam_paine]

if the British had only spread opium addiction more widely throughout China more children of Sichuan would have survived this 7.8 earthquake today?

In a single harsh word, YES. (See #57 for more than a word)

Simply compare where the British "enslaved and raped" the locals in their empire, to other imperialist countries, or worse, where no imperialism occured.

United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Australia etc etc.

Not to mention the final war fought by the Empire to save continental europe from herself.

It's a long bloody history, and nobody can really balance the good and the bad objectively....But I suspect that had the British Navy ceased to exist long ago, that more of the world would look like Burma and Sichuan and less would look like New York.

[TigersEye]

In a single harsh word, YES. (See #57 for more than a word) Simply compare where the British "enslaved and raped" the locals in their empire, to other imperialist countries, or worse, where no imperialism occured.

That is simply an astounding rationalization. If you want to stand on that knock yourself out. LOLOL

[TigersEye]

In Korea, otherwise pleasant people have told me, repeatedly, that they cringe at and are revolted by a reunification of their North Korean brothers. Why? Because it would put a huge drag on their economy to bring all those people up above poverty. IOW, cheaper to send them some rice shipments and let them be ground under by the dictator than to have all that wage pressure. Out of life is out of mind. It is disgusting.

In order to be ethically consistent I expect you are fully in favor of open borders welcoming all the world's poor into the U.S. without exception. No limit on the numbers nor the time frame in which they all pour in. We certainly wouldn't want to let our selfish desire to maintain some semblance of our way of life and lifestyle take priority over "helping" our less fortunate brothers and sisters. That would be disgusting!

Outside of city limits in the USA, there ARE NO BUILDING CODES.

Maybe in West Virginia. Maybe in Texas. (I doubt it) Certainly not here in Colorado where the uniform building code (UBC) is the law no matter where you are. Building on the sly without permits notwithstanding.

You can live in a tent.

True, there are no building codes for tents. There are restrictions in most counties, even in rural areas, that restrict how long you can live in a temporary shelter even on your own land. I call BS on the whole idea that there are no building codes in the U.S..

So the cheapest and only natural way to build a wall, for example, in the rural areas of America, is with the same materials and methods which have been tested for civil engineering standards and, more importantly, UL fireproofing codes.

More BS. There are many places where exceptions can be obtained for non-traditional building materials. Some submission of an engineering evaluation would likely be required but there are tire houses, straw bale houses, rammed earth houses, adobe and stucco houses and numerous others.