Someone knew, but quake-resistence is too expensive!
Experts Warned of Quake Risk in China - NYTimes.com
For decades, Chinese scientists say, they have known of the risk of a potentially catastrophic earthquake along the Longmenshan belt, the area where the Wenchuan earthquake struck, and repeatedly raised their concerns with government authorities. But they say preparations for a quake there were cursory at best, and building codes remained well short of the codes that have become standard in other well-known earthquake zones, including Beijing itself.
The ruling Communist Party has hailed its own vigorous response to the quake as evidence of its concern for human life, and has generally received positive reviews at home and abroad for its rescue efforts after the quake. To date, however, China’s state-run news media have paid little attention to the fact that government officials apparently did little to shore up structures, limit urban growth or even conduct basic safety drills that might have reduced the death toll.
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“The line of the middle fault is as clear as a string,” said Li Yong, a geological expert at Chengdu University of Technology. “It suggests continuous and strong movement. Such a long and clear lineament should trigger a big quake. Other scientists have had similar ideas.”
In July, a paper by Mr. Li and another scientist raised the likelihood of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake along the Longmenshan belt, and spoke again of the dangers there at a conference in China a month before the disaster.
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Mr. Gao referred to an earthquake building code standard used in China. A building would have required construction to an 11th-degree standard to have escaped damage in last month’s earthquake. Many Chinese experts invoked the high cost of building structures to withstand major earthquakes as a rationale for the failure to do so.
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“The quake-proof level for Wenchuan’s local buildings is rated Degree 7, but based on what I’ve seen on-site, the buildings there are far from reaching this standard. Let’s not talk about whether the degree of quake-proofing is high enough; the buildings in the affected areas just have no quake-proof protection at all.”
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A disproportionately large number of the earthquake’s victims were children crushed when thousands of classrooms crumbled or collapsed. Facing pressure from parents over the loss of their children, this week the Sichuan Education Bureau published a list of five reasons school-related deaths were so high. The reasons included the timing of the quake, while classes were in session, and the age of school buildings. No mention was made of government failure to enforce standards, or of corruption, which are taboo subjects.
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Beichuan, a county capital, was moved in 1952 to its present site at the foot of three mountains, from a nearby site that was prone to flooding. But concerns about the risk of a major earthquake have been voiced almost continuously since the relocation.
“Ever since I was small,” said Sun Xiaotao, director of the general office of Beichuan County’s fiscal bureau, “I’ve heard talk about how if an earthquake happened, we’d be wrapped in, just like a dumpling.”