The ****trait of a Murdering Olympic Host -- Quake danger was well-known,
Chinese scientists say / NY Times
Quake danger was well-known, Chinese scientists say
By Howard W. French
Thursday, May 29, 2008
SHANGHAI: Chinese scientists say that even before a final accounting can
be made in the earthquake this month in Sichuan Province, one thing is
already painfully evident: The huge death toll in the disaster stems
from a failure to heed clear warnings of a devastating earthquake in the
area.
For decades, Chinese scientists say, they have known of the risk of a
potentially catastrophic earthquake in the very area where the Wenchuan
disaster struck, and when the dust settles from emergency relief
operations still underway, they say, one powerful question will still
loom: Why was so little done to prepare for such a disaster?
Despite expressions of surprise in the early days after the March 12
quake, Chinese scientists say, there had been a longstanding consensus
about the danger posed by seismic activity in an area known as the
Longmenshan thrust belt.
As early as 2002, Chinese scientific papers specifically warned of an
imminent threat of a major earthquake in this area. Despite such alerts,
experts said little had been done to enforce adequate building standards
in the area or to educate residents of the area about the risk and
require safety drills.
Some scientists went so far as to say that many of the places struck by
the Wenchuan earthquake were unfit for human habitation.
"Chinese people have a saying that you learn a fence needs mending after
the sheep have run away," said Gao Jianguo, a researcher with the China
Earthquake Administration, in Beijing. "In this case, people wouldn't
recognize the danger until the sheep actually died. We tried to lay out
the reasons beforehand, but people wouldn't listen."
Gao is not a lonely voice in the seismology establishment railing
against the failure of officials to listen. Rather, he is one of many
specialists who have begun making the politically delicate point that
clear warnings of a potentially catastrophic seismic event went unheeded.
One after another, Chinese experts have emphasized that they are unable
to predict the timing of an event like last month's earthquake, which
left more than 80,000 people either dead or missing, but they say that
the general danger to this region has been well understood since at
least the 1970s.
"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."
Last July, Li co-wrote a paper that raised the likelihood of a 7.0
magnitude earthquake in this same area, along the Longmenshan belt, and
he spoke again of the dangers there at a conference in China a month
before the disaster struck.
Despite well-established science pointing to the risk of a 7.0 or
greater earthquake in this region, and a history of advocating for
stronger precautionary measures, some Chinese scientists expressed a
deep sense of failure for not having warned the government even more
strongly about the seismic danger in the area. The Longmenshan belt was
not featured, for example, on a recent priority watch list of likely
trouble spots.
"Beyond the pain felt by ordinary Chinese, we in earthquake science are
guilty beyond description," said Ma Shengli, deputy director of the
Institute of Geology of the Chinese Earthquake Administration. "Our
ability fell far short of what was needed, and we can't help but cry."
Nonetheless, decades of knowledge of the threat of an event of such
magnitude raises major public policy questions that have not been
addressed in the Chinese media or in public discussion here so far.
Throughout the earthquake zone, scientists said, building standards had
been set too low, given the known risk, and even then, few buildings had
been built to meet the intended standards.
"The earthquake administration didn't warn the government enough," Gao
said. "We told them things should be built to withstand seventh degree
crack resistance, but we should have insisted on nine degree, just as
experts from the Soviet Union advised us back in the 1950s."
Gao referred to an earthquake building-code standard used in China. A
building would have required construction to an 11-degree standard to
have escaped damage in this 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. In other parts of
China, like Beijing, where the risk of earthquakes is high, major
efforts have been made to enforce strict building codes.
In heavily populated Sichuan, where usable land is scarce and most
people are peasants, such investments have not been made. In light of
the huge loss of life in what now ranks as the greatest natural disaster
in modern Chinese history, many said this was unacceptable.
Hu Xingdou, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, called
the failure to enforce adequate building standards a case of "serious
malfeasance" on the part of local governments.
"One of their basic responsibilities is to ensure people's safety, which
means supervising the quality of people's homes, and making sure that
new houses comply with standards," Hu said. "Even if they haven't made
the effort to cover all rural housing, initially they should make sure
public buildings, such as schools and hospitals, are safe and compliant."
A dispro****tionately large number of the earthquake's victims were
children crushed to death when thousands of school buildings crumbled or
collapsed. Facing pressure from angry parents over the loss of their
children, this week the Sichuan Education Bureau published a list of
five reasons why school-related deaths were so high. The reasons
included the time of the quake, which occurred with class in session,
and the age of school buildings. No mention was made of government
failure to enforce standards, or of corruption.
Treading delicately on a politically sensitive subject, Li, the
co-author of last year's paper that warned of the danger to this region
said, "Many experts have provided their knowledge and suggestions, but
how much of it became a reality in these towns and villages isn't
something that's convenient for me to say."
Scientists said that in areas which had suffered the worst damages,
given the known risk, there should have been no settlement at all.
"When I saw the footage of Beichuan City after the earthquake, I was
stunned," said Liu Jingbo, a professor at the Construction Institute of
Disaster Preparation and Relief at Tsinghua University, in Beijing. "How
could a populous city be built in such a risky area, particularly right
at the foot of mountains? When an earthquake occurs, it's not just the
collapse of buildings that buries people, but boulders and huge rocks
and mud flows follow on immediately."
More than 15,000 people died in Beichuan alone, or about one-tenth of
the city's population.
"The ignorance of the local government or the lack of attention to
implementation of the departments with real power contributed to this
tragedy," Liu said. "As I've said, real attention sometimes only comes
at the cost of great loss, or even of people's lives."
Beyond the question of building safety, earthquake scientists and
disaster relief specialists said that in a zone of such well-known risk,
public education campaigns and frequent emergency drills should have
been required, but had not been.
"We had never been made aware of the earthquake risks," said Peng Juan,
a Wenchuan County government official who now works in the county's
relief headquarters. "It had never happened before. I had heard from
older generations about the Maoxian earthquake, but that's faraway from
Wenchuan," Peng said, referring to an earthquake that hit the same
prefecture in the 1930s.
More than 16,000 people died in Wenchuan County this month, and the
county, which includes the epicenter, has given the disaster its name.
"Each year we devote a day in March to earthquake education, but we
haven't done drills, because it would require lots of people and money,"
said He Biao, director of the Aba Prefecture Disaster Relief
Headquarters. "That's where we didn't do enough. The government had
thought about it, but we didn't push it."
Despite the scientists' understanding of the risks to the zone, He said
Aba Prefecture, which contains Wenchuan County, and sits on the
Longmenshan belt, was not listed as a risky point in meetings held
during recent years to discuss earthquake risk.
"Only a circle was drawn on the map for people's attention," he said.
"Frankly, I don't understand why that is."
Fan Wenxin, Li Zhen and **** Jing contributing re****ting from Shanghai.
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