China quake: 5.36 million buildings confirmed destroyed, over 21 million damaged

Now comes the post mortem. China is starting an investigation of the massive damage caused by last week’s earthquake. Building standards and quality of materials are the big concerns. That is likely to be an extremely serious issue for someone.

In at least one area, the only building that collapsed was the local school. The Chinese in the devastated region are understandably angry. The government will be furious. China is seen as a centralized government system, one party state, etc, but the fact is that they have real problems with corruption, particularly in the construction industry. PBS:

Anger is also reportedly building among bereaved parents in Sichuan over the way many school buildings had collapsed, burying classrooms full of children. In one town, in a rare public protest, hundreds demanded punishment for anyone guilty of shoddy construction, Reuters reported.

"How come all the houses didn't fall down, but the school did? And how come that happened in so many places?" demanded Zhao, whose two daughters were crushed to death in Juyuan town.

In an ITV video broadcast on PBS, a resident picked up a bit of a fallen school building, concrete, and crumbled it in his hands. They call it “bean curd”. It fell apart like a sand castle. Meanwhile China is moving quickly to get an investigation under way. Xinhua:

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on Tuesday that it had sent 201 building safety experts to the quake-stricken regions in the southwest.

These experts, dispatched in three teams over the past six days, had evaluated the safety of buildings with a total area of 1.8 million square meters and trained more than 140 local staff, said the ministry.

They came from national universities, research institutes, architecture design and construction agencies and building quality inspection bureaus.

They are working in hard-hit areas including Dujiangyan, Deyang, Shifang, Mianzhu and Guangyuan.

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, about 5.36 million buildings had been confirmed destroyed and more than 21 million were damaged in the earthquake as of Monday evening.

China is taking the quake hard. Xinhua’s front page is literally covered in quake-related stories, and it’s an indication of the level of grief this has caused the nation. Some good may come of this horror, though. China has been trying, with varying levels of success, to combat corruption in the construction industry for a while now. The industry has practically rebuilt China in a decade or so, which is an indication of the kind of money involved. If some of the parasites responsible for the “bean curd” schools are caught and punished, it will make China a much safer place, at the very least. This is at least one case where all those shootings would definitely be of the right people, or so-called people.