Beichuan county reconstruction begins
Preliminary work on reconstructing quake-hit Beichuan County has begun. The newly rebuilt area will cover 10 square kilometers and house more than 10 thousand residents.
Shunyi village is one of the targets of the reconstruction project.
A demolition team and local officials are carefully measuring houses that will be knocked down. They aim to ensure people are adequately housed in new accommodation.
Several people will oversee the process of measuring the homes which will be demolished.
A Village representative of Shunyi village, said, We will try to make sure it is satisfactory for everyone. If you have any doubts or question, just tell us.
The total area of Zhang Zhenghai's two-storey house is 274 square meters, including farmland and crops. Zhang will get 20 thousand yuan compensation in total.
Mu Quanjin, Deputy director of Land Resources Bureau, Beichuan, said, Things that cannot be moved, such as stoves and water pools, even pipes, will all be compensated for. Trees and equipment are also included.
Zhang will eventually get a new 105 square meter apartment.
Before reconstruction work is complete, every family member will receive a 150 yuan subsidy each month.
All the residents in the area where houses will be demolished will be covered by social insurance. They will also be guaranteed a stable salary after they move.
Today's Shunyi village will become the town center of the rebuilt county, with libraries, cultural centers, a quake memorial building, a Qiang folk museum and a history museum.
The new county will employ a lot of workers, in particular the Beichuan-Shandong industrial park. Free vocational training will be given in cloth manufacturing, construction and tourism.
Mu also said, There is no problem for living here, and we are confident the living standards of residents will be greatly improved. Life here will be better.
Land requisition and house demolition will be completed before the end of March, and work on constructing the new Beichuan County will start in April.
Rise from the Ruins: Unbeatable Beichuan High School
On May 12, 2008, a devastating earthquake turned Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County in SW China's Sichuan Province into a heartbreaking site of destruction and death. Ten years later, people have rebuilt their homes, schools, and lives. CGTN takes you to the second episode of the documentary series as we witness the fight for the rebirth of Beichuan.#earthquake#China#Sichuan
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High fidelity Seismic Damage Visualization of New Beichuan City
To mark the ten-year anniversary of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, the Research Group of Prof. Xinzheng Lu of Tsinghua University collaborated with other institutes implemented the seismic damage simulation of the New Beichuan City. The important scientific outcomes are introduced in this video.
Scene 1: A fixed-wing drone equipped with five cameras was utilized to create a high-fidelity three-dimensional model of the entire city, using the oblique photography technology. The three-dimensional model contains more than 200 million polygons.
Scene 2: In this analysis, the nonlinear time-history analysis of buildings on a regional scale considering site-city interaction effects is implemented. Specifically, the buildings are simulated using the nonlinear multiple degree-of-freedom models, and the site is simulated using the 3D spectral elements.
The ground motions of Wenchuan earthquake are simulated using the Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer. Subsequently, the ground motions are adopted to simulate the interactive seismic responses of both the buildings and the site of the entire New Beichuan City.
The influence of the complex terrain can be considered in this study, so as to produce a more reasonable analysis result. For example, the seismic accelerations at the top of the mountain are evidently different from those at the bottom of the mountain.
Scene 3: By combining the regional seismic damage simulation of buildings and the detailed 3D urban polygonal modeling, the nonlinear seismic responses at any time are visualized in high fidelity for every building and every story.
Scene 4: By combining the building models from oblique photography with non-linear time-history analysis results, the seismic responses of buildings are visualized in high fidelity.
For special buildings, we can further establish their refined finite element models according to the design drawings, so that the seismic responses of every component of the buildings can be obtained. Then the simulation results can be combined with the building models obtained by oblique photography as well.
Cool technologies behind this video:
(1) Seismic wave propagation simulation using the Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer.
One of the key challenges for seismic damage simulation is to obtain a reasonable ground motion input. The seismic wave propagation from the fault to the site is a complex process. Limited by computer capabilities, previous studies generally can only simulate low-frequency seismic waves.
In this study, we cooperated with the team of Professor Haohuan Fu from the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, which has the fastest in the world, Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer.
Powered by the Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, the full-band strong motion simulation of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake at the New Beichuan City was performed.
(2) Regional seismic damage simulation of buildings considering site-city interaction effects
Complex terrain and dense buildings may have a significant impact on the surface ground motion. As a result, the interaction between the site and the buildings should be properly considered.
The buildings can be simulated using both the nonlinear multiple degree-of-freedom models and the refined finite element models.
We further cooperated with the team of Professor Gang Wang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to develop a computer program. Using such a program, the soil model of several square kilometers and hundreds of buildings are put together, and the seismic responses are calculated considering the site-city interaction effects.
(3) Fixed-wing drone oblique photography
Another key issue in this study is to obtain the high-fidelity façade images and design data of the buildings. With the support of the Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Bureau of Beichuan County, we investigated the relevant design drawings of buildings.
Moreover, in cooperation with Professor Jiansi Yang from the Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, a vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle developed by China was launched, and more than 14,000 images were captured. Subsequently, the 3D building models with more than 200 million polygons were generated using High-performance computer clusters. The resolution of the 3D models is 0.035 m.
High-fidelity Seismic Damage Visualization of New Beichuan City-V2
To mark the ten-year anniversary of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, the Research Group of Prof. Xinzheng Lu of Tsinghua University collaborated with other institutes implemented the seismic damage simulation of the New Beichuan City. The important scientific outcomes are introduced in this video.
A fixed-wing drone equipped with five cameras was utilized to create a high-fidelity three-dimensional model of the entire city, using the oblique photography technology. The three-dimensional model contains more than 200 million polygons.
In this analysis, the nonlinear time-history analysis of buildings on a regional scale considering site-city interaction effects is implemented. Specifically, the buildings are simulated using the nonlinear multiple degree-of-freedom models, and the site is simulated using the 3D spectral elements.
The ground motions of Wenchuan earthquake are simulated using the Sunway Tai hu Light supercomputer. Subsequently, the ground motions are adopted to simulate the interactive seismic responses of both the buildings and the site of the entire New Beichuan City.
The influence of the complex terrain can be considered in this study, to produce a more reasonable analysis result. For example, the seismic accelerations at the top of the mountain are evidently different from those at the bottom of the mountain.
By combining the regional seismic damage simulation of buildings and the fine 3D urban polygonal modeling, the nonlinear seismic responses at any time are visualized in high fidelity for every building and every floor.
By combining the building model from oblique photography with non-linear time-history analysis results, the seismic responses of buildings are visualized in high fidelity.
For special buildings, we can further establish their refined finite element models according to the design drawings, so that the seismic responses of every component of the buildings can be obtained. Then the simulation results can be combined with the building models obtained by oblique photography as well.
Typical tall buildings at Beichuan City are shown as an example. Ground motions recorded in the regions of 6, 7 and 8.5 degrees of seismic intensity according to Chinese code are inputted respectively. Subsequently, the seismic response of these tall buildings can be obtained. In order to display the response more clearly, the building deformation in the video has been amplified.
Cool technologies behind the video:
One of the key challenges for seismic damage simulation is to obtain a reasonable ground motion input. The seismic wave propagation from source the fault to the site is a complex process. Limited by computer capabilities, previous studies generally can only simulate low-frequency seismic waves.
In this study, we cooperated with the team of Professor Haohuan Fu from the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, which has the fastest in the world, Sunway Tai hu Light supercomputer.
Powered with the Sunway Tai hu Light supercomputer, the full-band strong motion simulation of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake at the New Beichuan City was performed.
Complex terrain and dense buildings may have a significant impact on the surface ground motion. As a result, the interaction between the site and the buildings should be properly considered.
The buildings can be simulated using both the nonlinear multiple degree-of-freedom models and the refined finite element models.
We further cooperated with the team of Professor Gang Wang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to develop a computer program. Using such a program, the soil model of several square kilometers and hundreds of buildings are put together, and the seismic responses are calculated considering the site-city interaction effects.
Another key issue in this study is to obtain the high-fidelity facade images and design data of the buildings. With the support of the Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Bureau of Beichuan County, we investigated the relevant design drawings of buildings.
Moreover, in cooperation with Professor Janes Yang from the Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, a vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle developed by China was launched, and more than 14,000 images were captured. Subsequently, the 3D building models with more than 200 million polygons were generated using High-performance computer clusters. The resolution of the 3D models is 0.035 meters.
High-fidelity Seismic Damage Visualization of New Beichuan City-V3
To mark the ten-year anniversary of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, the Research Group of Prof. Xinzheng Lu of Tsinghua University collaborated with other institutes implemented the seismic damage simulation of the New Beichuan City. The important scientific outcomes are introduced in this video.
A fixed-wing drone equipped with five cameras was utilized to create a high-fidelity three-dimensional model of the entire city, using the oblique photography technology. The three-dimensional model contains more than 200 million polygons.
In this analysis, the nonlinear time-history analysis of buildings on a regional scale considering site-city interaction effects is implemented. Specifically, the buildings are simulated using the nonlinear multiple degree-of-freedom models, and the site is simulated using the 3D spectral elements.
The ground motions of Wenchuan earthquake are simulated using the Sunway Tai hu Light supercomputer. Subsequently, the ground motions are adopted to simulate the interactive seismic responses of both the buildings and the site of the entire New Beichuan City.
The influence of the complex terrain can be considered in this study, to produce a more reasonable analysis result. For example, the seismic accelerations at the top of the mountain are evidently different from those at the bottom of the mountain.
By combining the regional seismic damage simulation of buildings and the fine 3D urban polygonal modeling, the nonlinear seismic responses at any time are visualized in high fidelity for every building and every floor.
By combining the building model from oblique photography with non-linear time-history analysis results, the seismic responses of buildings are visualized in high fidelity.
For special buildings, we can further establish their refined finite element models according to the design drawings, so that the seismic responses of every component of the buildings can be obtained. Then the simulation results can be combined with the building models obtained by oblique photography as well.
Typical tall buildings at Beichuan City are shown as an example. Ground motions recorded in the regions of 6, 7 and 8.5 degrees of seismic intensity according to Chinese code are inputted respectively. Subsequently, the seismic response of these tall buildings can be obtained. To display the response more clearly, the building deformation in the video has been amplified.
High-fidelity realistic visualizations of seismic responses of building clusters are also implemented by combining the regional seismic damage simulation and the oblique photography models. The ground motion at New Beichuan City in 2008 Wenchuan earthquake simulated by Institute of Geophysics China Earthquake Administration is used as input.
Cool technologies behind the video:
One of the key challenges for seismic damage simulation is to obtain a reasonable ground motion input. The seismic wave propagation from source the fault to the site is a complex process. Limited by computer capabilities, previous studies generally can only simulate low-frequency seismic waves.
In this study, we cooperated with the team of Professor Haohuan Fu from the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, which has the fastest in the world, Sunway Tai hu Light supercomputer.
Powered with the Sunway Tai hu Light supercomputer, the full-band strong motion simulation of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake at the New Beichuan City was performed.
Complex terrain and dense buildings may have a significant impact on the surface ground motion. As a result, the interaction between the site and the buildings should be properly considered.
The buildings can be simulated using both the nonlinear multiple degree-of-freedom models and the refined finite element models.
We further cooperated with the team of Professor Gang Wang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to develop a computer program. Using such a program, the soil model of several square kilometers and hundreds of buildings are put together, and the seismic responses are calculated considering the site-city interaction effects.
Another key issue in this study is to obtain the high-fidelity facade images and design data of the buildings. With the support of the Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Bureau of Beichuan County, we investigated the relevant design drawings of buildings.
Moreover, in cooperation with Professor Janes Yang from the Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, a vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle developed by China was launched, and more than 14,000 images were captured. Subsequently, the 3D building models with more than 200 million polygons were generated using High-performance computer clusters. The resolution of the 3D models is 0.035 meters.
Down Town
14:28 P.M, May 12, 2008, Wenchuan, China, 8-magnitude earthquake.
A grievous moment that strikes human's heart, a collision between civilized society and brutal nature, a catastrophe deeply carved on human history, is briefly presented in this video that captures a tiny slice of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake scene which caused more than 100k fatalities within a Minute.
People are always used to following good things and not wanting to think back to suffering. Those who have lived here will remember these places, but these people have already left, and we don't know where they drift. In order to find out the truth, I went to the three areas most affected by the earthquake, namely Shifang Chuanxindian earthquake protection site, Mianzhu Hanwang earthquake protection site and Beichuan old county earthquake site. Just in the earthquake site of the old county of Beichuan, more than 20,000 lives were buried under the rubble. Whether I walked in the protected area of the site or I have already returned home, I can't forget the pictures I saw there for a long time. Heavy and sorrowful, time seemed to be still a decade ago, only the new life of nature is still flourishing. When entering the site protection area along the road, the factory chimneys and the dry rivers made me feel that the earthquake may be more like a punishment for nature's destruction of the human environment, and we do not know how to repent and still destroy our survival home.
Japan landslide
Japan landslide
Changing Face of China AP on victims' recovery following quake
Yingxiu town, Wenchuan county, Sichuan province - July 18, 2008
1. Wide low-angle shot of woman dragging wood from rubble
2. Close tilt down of woman putting pieces of wood to basket
3. Mid pan of woman walking down mountain carrying basket loaded with wood, on her back
4. Close of wood being added to fire on stove, pot being placed on top
5. Mid low-angle shot of woman blowing flames on stove
6. Close of chimney with smoke
7. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) He Kairong, Earthquake refugee in Yingxiu town of earthquake epicentre:
I can't think longer term and I am just thinking at how to make my living now. The only hope I have now is to go out of the town and work in the big cities, so that I can earn some money to make ends meet. I don't have a plan for the future, and it is just impossible for me to think about it now.
8. Wide pan of camp for earthquake victims
9. Mid of earthquake refugees sitting in chairs and chatting
10. Wide pan of temporary market in camp
11. Close tilt up of drinks and food displayed in shelf
12. Mid of people buying food from temporary store
13. Wide of soldiers in protective suits disinfecting camp
14. Mid of soldier disinfecting
15. Wide of soldier disinfecting temporary toilet in camp
16. Wide pan of landslide site and buildings destroyed in earthquake
17. Mid of stone amidst rubble with inscription reading: May 12 Massive Earthquake
Chengdu city, Sichuan province - July 17, 2008
18. Wide interior of symposium for post-earthquake reconstruction
19. Mid of experts and United Nations official attending symposium
20. Close of map of planning for earthquake hit area
21. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin), Zhang Qiao, Director of Chengdu Municipal Bureau of City Planning Conservancy:
We will take a scientific approach to decisions on relocation and planning. We will fully respect the wishes of the people affected by the earthquake, the history and the natural situation of the community, and we will make full use of the already-existing urban planning system and make decisions based on the earthquake evaluation and post-quake reconstruction.
Dujiangyan city, Sichuan province - July 17, 2008
22. Wide of classroom with students taking lesson
23. Mid of students reading
24. Wide of school pupils playing outside classrooms
25. Mid of school pupils playing outside classroom
26. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin), Hu Jiang, pupil at Wanchuan School of Dujiangyan city, Sichuan province:
It is very hot in the classroom and the temperature's very high. The classroom we had in our own school was much better and it was not hot in the classroom.
Dujiangyan city, Sichuan province - May 13, 2008
27. Wide of school buildings collapsed in earthquake
28. Mid of soldiers rescuing students and teachers buried in rubble
29. Close tilt up of soldiers carrying dead body of student
30. Wide of soldiers carrying body away with father crying
Dujiangyan city, Sichuan province - July 17, 2008
31. Wide of temple reconstruction site; temple was destroyed during earthquake
32. Wide low-angle shot of workers rebuilding temple
33. Close of worker cleaning brick with tools
Beijing, China - July 16, 2008
34. SOUNDBITE: (English) Lawrence Vale, Head and Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT, United States:
Reconstruction efforts that tend to be successful are those that attempt to learn from the needs of local populations and engage local officials who are much clearer about local priorities, rather than to have some single solution that is delivered in a top-down manner.
Wenchuan county, Sichuan province - July 19, 2008
35. Wide of construction site with workers paving road
36. Close of worker laying bitumen on road with spade
37. Mid of workers paving road
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Another earthquake struck Sichuan china with magnitude 6.3 causing dozens dead or injured
Five people were killed and 54 others injured after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit a heavily Tibetan region of southwest China's Sichuan Province on Saturday.
The quake struck at 4:55 p.m. Saturday, with the epicenter measured at the Tagong Prairie, Kangding County, in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center
A total of 25,000 houses were damaged, affecting about 79,500 people and forcing 6,200 to relocate, according to the Garze prefecture government.
Reporters at the site said dozens of village huts and cattle sheds collapsed in the rural areas, but no building collapsed in the county seat, thanks to the massive shantytown renovation and infrastructure improvement it has undergone in recent years.
The government has spent heavily on the development of the Tibetan region, so houses today are very firm, said Zhou Gong, a local Tibetan driver, who said his house survived the quake without damage.
A 6.5-magnitude quake jolted a mountainous part of Yunnan on August 3, killing over 600 people. Poorly constructed houses as a result of bitter poverty was considered a major factor behind the heavy casualties.
Among the injured, six were in critical condition and another five suffering severe injuries. The remaining 43 people sustained minor injuries, including 19 primary school pupils who got hurt in a stampede, said a publicity official at Kangding county, correcting the previous count of 42.
Within 9 hours, emergency services were able to successfully rescue all those injured after the earthquake. Eleven medical teams have reached the quake zone, and nearly 10,000 medical and epidemic prevention personnel have joined the rescue efforts.
In hard-hit Duola Village, relocated villagers are sheltered in tents and have been given quilts and instant noodles. Mobile communication has also been restored with the help of telecommunication vehicles.
Rescuers said all residents in the epicenter would spend this night in tents. Good news is that every household in the pastoral Tagong Town is equipped with a tent, but the freezing temperatures there, which could plunge to minus 10 degrees Celsius at night, could make lives difficult.
Song Li, vice head of Tagong Township, said the township is still in huge need of warm tents.
The 11th Panchen Lama, Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu, a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, on Sunday morning prayed for the quake zone. He wished people there could soon walk out of the shadow of the quake and lives quickly return to normal.
STRONG TREMOR
The strong earthquake was the latest to hit Sichuan, which neighbors Tibet Autonomous Region and has a history of earthquakes. A massive 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan on May 12, 2008, resulting in more than 80,000 people dead or missing. On April 20, 2013, a 7.0-magnitude quake hit Lushan, killing at least 196.
Kangding, in particular, lies on a geologically active belt. The county reported nine 7-magnitude-or-above quakes in 400 years.
Kungar Como, 20, and her grandmother were at home in Tagong when the earthquake struck.
We felt a strong tremor, so I helped my grandmother outside. But she was hit by a collapsing wall, said Kungar. People soon came to our aid and she was on her way to hospital about half an hour after the quake.
Powerful tremors were also felt in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, on Saturday, sending rattled residents out of the buildings.
The quake have caused blackouts, shut down two highways and affected railway traffic in the region for hours.
Two hours after the quake occurred, a 35-member rescue team from the police arrived at Tagong. Six military aircraft, 60 medical staff and nearly 1,000 soldiers and militia remain on standby.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs said at its website that it has allocated 1,000 tents, 2,000 quilts and 2,000 cotton-padded coats to the area. It has also dispersed 50 million yuan (8.16 million U.S. dollars) to disaster relief efforts.
Another earthquake struck Sichuan china with magnitude 6 3 causing dozens dead or injured,for more information about china world news visit site at as well as business website at
CCTV-9: Special aid air-dropped in worst-hit areas
Special aid air-dropped in worst-hit areas
WATCH VIDEO
Source: CCTV.com | 05-16-2008 22:03
Special Report: Strong quake jolts SW China
A special action force has been sent on a reconnaissance mission to Maoxian, Beichuan and Wenchuan, all of which are among the areas worst-hit by the deadly quake.
The special action force，comprising 100 airmen, is heading for the quake-ravaged Maoxian county.
15 paratroopers were air-dropped at a sea level of around 4-thousand meters, a record for air force history in China. This was without any assistance from ground crew or specific landmarks.
Thanks to the fresh information from the special action force via satellite phone, The Air Force was able to deploy a large scale air-drop to Maoxian.
By eight p.m. on Thursday, around five tons of aid materials, including water and food, were air-dropped to Wenchuan County, from 5800 meters above sea level by a Il-76 Aircraft.
This is an unusual action for an Il-76 transport aircraft. It normally executes air-drops around 600 meters above sea level. But due to the geography, the air force braved the poor weather to deploy the action.
One airman said It is indeed very difficult and dangerous for each of us. We need to make sure that all of goods are air-dropped to proper place, not too far from the scheduled places.
Despite the difficulties the air force is doing all it can to counter the disaster.
Chinese ghost town
Almost 10 buildings including homes, offices and the primary school have gradually emerged from the water after the village of Xuanping was completely destroyed in 2008. An 8.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the village in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province of China, causing it to be completely flooded by a barrier lake.
2008 Sichuan earthquake | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:03:33 1 Geology
00:07:12 1.1 Tectonics
00:13:27 1.2 Intensities and damage area
00:18:56 1.3 Aftershocks
00:20:31 2 Damage and casualties
00:21:29 2.1 Extent of the tremors
00:23:58 2.2 Immediate aftermath
00:31:03 2.3 Casualties
00:36:28 2.4 Property damage
00:39:53 2.5 Later casualties
00:42:27 2.5.1 Government data
00:43:27 3 Rescue efforts
00:55:11 3.1 Quake lakes
00:57:30 4 Domestic reactions
01:03:06 5 Collapse of schoolhouses
01:13:36 6 Foreign and domestic aid
01:14:15 6.1 Mainland China
01:17:27 7 First anniversary
01:18:16 8 Completion of works
01:19:53 9 Precursors and postmortems
01:26:08 10 See also
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I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
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SUMMARY
=======
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake (Chinese: 汶川大地震; pinyin: Wènchuān dà dìzhèn; literally: 'Great Wenchuan earthquake'), also known as the Great Sichuan earthquake or Wenchuan earthquake, occurred at 14:28:01 China Standard Time on May 12, 2008. Measuring at 8.0 Ms (7.9 Mw), the earthquake's epicenter was located 80 kilometres (50 mi) west-northwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital, with a focal depth of 19 km (12 mi). The earthquake ruptured the fault for over 240 km (150 mi), with surface displacements of several meters. The earthquake was also felt in nearby countries and as far away as both Beijing and Shanghai—1,500 and 1,700 km (930 and 1,060 mi) away—where office buildings swayed with the tremor. Strong aftershocks, some exceeding 6 Ms, continued to hit the area up to several months after the main shock, causing further casualties and damage. The earthquake also caused the largest number of geohazards ever recorded, including about 200,000 landslides and more than 800 quake lakes distributed over an area of 110,000 km2 (42,000 sq mi).Over 69,000 people lost their lives in the quake, including 68,636 in Sichuan province. 374,176 were reported injured, with 18,222 listed as missing as of July 2008. The geohazards triggered by the earthquake are thought to be responsible for at least one third of the death toll. The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless, though the number could be as high as 11 million. Approximately 15 million people lived in the affected area. It was the deadliest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed at least 240,000 people, and the strongest in the country since the 1950 Chayu earthquake, which registered at 8.5 on the Richter magnitude scale. It is the 18th deadliest earthquake of all time. On November 6, 2008, the central government announced that it would spend 1 trillion RMB (about US $146.5 billion) over the next three years to rebuild areas ravaged by the earthquake, as part of the Chinese economic stimulus program.
Nature - Heavy flood waters
Heavy flood waters swept through Beichuan in China's Sichuan Province
Rainstorms that are said to be the worst in five decades have flooded large areas of southwest China, washing out bridges, setting off a landslide that buried dozens of people and destroying a memorial to victims of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province that flattened large parts of the same area.
The state news media reported Wednesday that heavy rains, which began last weekend, have killed more than 50 people across China and disrupted two million lives.
The worst flooding, in mountainous areas of Sichuan that include some of China's most spectacular scenery, highlights the challenges of encouraging construction in places that are prone to heavy downpours and seismic activity. Some experts, citing frequent earthquakes and soil erosion caused by deforestation, have argued against the continued development of towns and cities along the Min, Fu and Jian Rivers, which snake through the steep canyons of the region.
The worst damage appeared to be in the city of Dujiangyan, where a rain-soaked mountainside gave way on Wednesday, burying 11 homes and as many as 40 people. Xinhua, the state news agency, said rescue workers and sniffer dogs from Chengdu, the provincial capital, were rushing to the area, which only recently recovered from the 2008 earthquake. The earthquake left 87,000 dead or missing.
On Tuesday, a bridge across the Tongkou River collapsed, sending six vehicles into the water, the state news media reported. At least 12 people were still missing and presumed dead.
Flooding submerged Qushan, the former county seat of Beichuan, once a city of 20,000 that was destroyed by the earthquake. The state news media said 23 feet of water had inundated a recently opened museum commemorating earthquake victims. Survivors have long since been moved to a new town center, and officials set aside about 10 square miles as a memorial.
The Oriental Morning Post, a newspaper based in Shanghai, urged the government to better protect the memorial area, which contains the remains of hundreds of people whose bodies were never recovered from the rubble.
If we don't take effective measures, the editorial said, in another 10 or 20 years the ruins might not be there at all.
To the north, in Shanxi Province, 12 workers were killed Tuesday night when a violent rainstorm caused the collapse of an unfinished coal mine workshop they were building, People's Daily reported, citing a statement from the city government of Jinzhong, where the accident occurred.
Mia Li contributed research.
China Said: No Karma for Its Corrupted Officials
Parents in China blame poor construction for a school's collapse during the earthquake.
China's Heaviest Toll: Schoolchildren
It was built out of tofu, says Hu Yuefu, 44, of the school building that collapsed in the magnitude 7.9 quake and killed his 15-year-old daughter Huishan. He believes local government officials and the building contractors are responsible. As he speaks, a crowd gathers around to listen and offer their support. I hope there is an investigation, Hu says. Otherwise, there are a thousand parents who would beat them to death.
That anger is flowing in communities across the disaster zone. While the overall death toll has passed 21,500 and is expected to climb as high as 50,000, there is special tragedy — and perhaps a whiff of scandal — in the number of young people who died in collapsed schools. Communities like Juyuan have had an entire generation of young people wiped out. In the nearby city of Dujiangyan, more than 300 students were killed when the Xinjian Elementary School collapsed. Sixty miles away in the mountainside town of Hanwang, the scene repeated itself at the Dongqi Middle School, where an estimated 200 students died. Five children were killed when two schools even collapsed in Chongqing, the state-run Xinhua News Service reported. The city is more than 200 miles away from the quake's epicenter.
The devastation is a reminder that for all of its explosive economic growth, parts of China are still painfully poor. While cities like Shanghai boast some of the world's tallest and most advanced buildings, rural areas are often plagued by substandard structures. During the 1990s China updated its building codes to standards that approximate those of the U.S. and Europe, says Greg Wong, a Hong Kong--based structural engineer who has worked in China since 1985. But those standards aren't always met, he says, especially in the countryside. If they spent more money and build buildings half as good as schools in North America or Hong Kong or even Beijing, I think they would have had a better chance of escaping this disaster, he says.
Part of the problem is money. Until recently local governments were expected to carry up to half of the expenses for local education, says Joseph Cheng, a political science professor at City University of Hong Kong. That created an incentive to skimp. In the interior provinces, governmental supervision is very lax, he says. Education is not a priority area. You can cut corners. Even now, provincial economic plans list yearly targets for the reduction of unsafe schools, illustrating the extent to which low school budgets have compromised safety. It's a widely recognized problem, Cheng says.
Some parents in Sichuan argue that the problem goes beyond shortchanging schools. They allege that local officials are responsible for allowing unsafe buildings to go ahead. The government and the construction companies collude with each other, says Hu, whose daughter's corpse was pulled out from the Juyuan Middle School two hours after it collapsed on Monday. It's in their interest to build them poorly.
In China it is often at the local level, where officials have the most direct impact on citizen's lives, that corruption is most common and bears the most painful consequences. While that problem is widely recognized, the collapse of schools after the Sichuan quake has turned it into a major public issue. During a State Council press conference this week, a journalist from the state-run China Daily asked why so many schools were destroyed by the tremor, while government buildings seemed comparatively intact. It was not just schools that collapsed, but because children were buried we pay close attention to that, replied Wang Zhenyao, disaster relief director for the Ministry of Civil Affairs. But in Beichuan county the civil administration building collapsed, and there were possibly casualties. The government buildings aren't all that firm. Still, online message boards teemed with demands for answers as to why so many schools were destroyed. After the disaster is over, there should be an investigation of who built the schools, the material problems and whether there was a problem of corruption. I think there definitely was, wrote one person on a Tianya web forum.
Not everyone in the disaster zone is ready to accuse the local officials of corruption, but they are still demanding answers. It's a question we are asking, says Feng Jianyun, 34, who was sitting outside the Jiuzhou Sports Center in Mianyang, which has been turned into a center for thousands of people left homeless by the quake. How could a place with so many people inside not be built better? That's what I want to know. We should not forget a lesson that has been learned in blood.
Rescuers remove bodies from buildings destroyed in quake
SHOTLIST
1. Wide of collapsed government building with rescue workers in background carrying corpses in body bags
2. Pull out of rescue team carrying corpse in red body bag on wooden pole
3. Rescue team carrying corpse towards truck
4. Rescue team on truck piling bodies in body bags
5. Mid of rescue worker spraying disinfectant
6. Rescue workers walking towards camera, UPSOUND: (Mandarin) Leave, please leave, this place isn't safe.
7. Tracking shot of rescue team carrying two bodies in body bags
8. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Wu Hai, Rescue team leader from Yunnan Province:
The bodies (we found) are at least in the middle stages of decomposition. Many of the limbs are broken off. There are definitely many more here, locals here said several thousands have been buried here.
9. Wide of rubble and destroyed buildings
10. Bodies on ground next to truck with medical teams spraying disinfectant on them
11. Pull out of rescue team carrying body in body bag on trolley
STORYLINE
The chances of finding more survivors in the rubble of China's powerful earthquake grew bleak on Sunday, as rows of retrieved corpses grew in length on the streets of shattered cities.
Dozens of bodies trapped in rubble were discovered in Beichuan City, near the quake's epicentre, where rescue teams have been working around the clock.
Fearing an epidemic and spread of diseases, medical teams were disinfecting debris and corpses.
On Saturday, the zone was fully open to journalists but aid teams are cordoning off many areas citing safety reasons.
Wu Hai a rescue team leader from Yunnan Province told AP Television that the bodies found in Beichuan were in the middle stages of decomposition.
Many of the limbs are broken off. There are definitely many more here, locals here said several thousands have been buried here, he said.
In Beichuan, corpses in body bags could be seen everywhere in the streets with soldiers regularly finding more dead bodies amid the wreckage.
Troops and aid teams say that hope is fading fast and the death count is expected to rise.
The government said it expects the final death toll will surpass 50-thousand with 28,881 so far confirmed.
Another 10,600 were still buried as of Saturday.
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