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]

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!

[brityank]

SS-DC !!

Same sh*t - different country! :^)

Graft and corruption are no stranger to these shores, as your missives have pointed out. Bob Bullard must be a friend of yours, no? ;^)

[Travis McGee]

Very true. I hope the Chinese learn an important lesson here, and I trust they will. I also very much hope their dams hold.

[brityank]

I saw one pic of a team on top of a dam, with a 4-6 inch wide crack running along the top from one side to the other. That doesn’t bode well for it’s stability, and another quake or flooding deluge will topple it. Heaven help anyone downstream. I too hope they hold, and that the Chinese will be able to draw down the impoundments to effect a good repair.

[old-and-old]

In Turkey a while back I remember reading about mass arrests of construction officials, right after a massive earthquake. Chicoms will want blood from someone. Contractors should stay low or move...even North Korea is safer.

[old-and-old]

thanks. I looked at the pix again. Usually there is always crumbled steel hanging, not in these buildings apparently.

[stlnative]

Thanks for the ping.
It is so very sad that so many children had to die due cheap sh*tty construction of schools.

Another thing that is so STUPID is building at foot the of mountains. (I guess the rent is real cheap there)


A survivor carrying goods evacuates the area past a huge rock lying on top of a car on a road near a mountain in the centre of earthquake-hit Beichuan county, Sichuan province, May 16, 2008. (Jason Lee/Reuters)

[stlnative]

Oooo I would like to see that picture. If if you run across it again please post it.

[BunnySlippers]

Northridge quake was 6.7. Schools withstood it but I hope we are lucky next time.

[Roccus]

NYC is rife with unreinforced brick buildings. An earthquake that would be of little consequence on the west coast would be disastrous there.

[stlnative]

This is a decent map that shows towm locations.

[stlnative]

This shows the epicenter being closer to the Dam.

[stlnative]

This handout satellite image (L) taken by Taiwan's FORMOSAT-2 on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 and released on May 16, 2008, shows the areas (in brown) devastated by Monday's 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Beichuan County of southwest China's Sichuan province. The photo would compare the same areas in an image taken in 2006 (R).

[brityank]

Here it is; I saved it on my PC but didn't save the location I got it from.

Crack at Fengshou Reservoir Dam

[brityank]

Looking at the amount of destruction that the landslides have caused, I doubt there is any safe place to go. Up on the hillsides and risk a slide, or in front of a dam and hope to swim. No good choices.

[stlnative]

Thanks - in this country that is more like a levee.

[stlnative]

here is the location on the picture (I just found it)
http://english.sina.com/p/1/2008/0516/159326.html

[stlnative]

I feel for all these children greatly. After they all heal can you imagine the high axiety and the fears they will have when they have to return back to school.

Maybe the Chinese will get smart and only build ground level schools in the future. Yes it will take up more land
but the young lives it it will save in the future during the next big quake is well worth it.

[brityank]

Thanks, added that into my list.

There are many earthen dams, some as high as 100 feet or more. They have concrete spillways and some support structures, but the main part is just a pile of dirt -- a very big pile. :^)

[stlnative]

It just gets worse...

100,000 trapped in Pengzhou City
2008-05-16 15:28:51 ET SINA English

Beijing, May 17 — About 400,000 people in Pengzhou City have been affected by the deadly earthquake, of which 100,000 victims are trapping amomg the mountains, a report from Xinhua said.

Xinhua reporters drove into Pengzhou in early morning, May 16. It is the first time that reporters entered into Pengzhou areas.

Pengzhou, a city 20 kilometres away from Chengdu, has a population of 800,000.

http://english.sina.com/china/1/2008/0516/159402.html

[stlnative]

Rescue team searches and cleans at Nanba Elementary School, Nanba Town, Qingwu County, Mianyang, Sichuan Province, May 15. (Xinhua Photo/Jiang Yi)

[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. =)