Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kuros]

Major Earthquake strikes Western China

[Ya-ta Boy]

Perhaps the Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn.

[hogwonguy1979]

[Tiger Beer]

[chris_J2]

The death toll has jumped to 5,000 with many teachers & students trapped in collapsed schools in Sichuan Province. 65 deaths confirmed in Chengdu.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=e9f48080-a422-4a8b-948d-e164ca1f033c

Beichuan (population 161,000), Mianyang city, & Dujiangyan, appear to be the worst affected cities. The only good that may come out of this, is that China may decide not to vote against allowing the UN, unfettered access to the cyclone Nargis disaster zone in Myanmar.

[bookemdanno]

It ain't looking good-perhaps upwards of 5,000 killed and double that number injured. Look for these numbers to escalate as more bodies are dug out and as the tallies are brought up-to-date. Reports from rural areas always trickle in. At least this time tens of thousands won't needlessly die because the Party refuses to acknowledge the scope of the disaster or allow outside aid to come in (as happened in Tangshan in 1976 shortly before Mao's death). Sadly, most of the worst earthquakes in the past century have been in China.

There tends to be an overreaction to these events in eastern coastal cities as earthquakes are widely discussed now in Chinese middle school textbooks.

hagwonguy1979 sniped:

[excitinghead]

Some people won't believe me (oh well), but because I was sitting down at the time I felt it from as far away as Busan:

http://thegrandnarrative.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/did-anybody-else-feel-the-earthquake/

I don't want to detract from the serious points people are making on this thread, but I'm curious as to whether anyone else in Korea felt it?

[chris_J2]

"Death toll in China earthquake rises to 8,533"

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gBr_dOzJ9Pnc_U9gSgtTgE-cR-KwD90K6CQO3

[Kuros]

[bookemdanno]

Mark my words: you'll see a much different response to this quake from the Chinese government than previous ones. And no, not only because of the Olympics, but because the present CCP leadership has vivid memories of what happened at Tangshan in 1976. No one can even estimate the number of people who died in that quake; estimates range from 200,000 to 600,000. What is clear is that most died waiting for relief workers to get to the rubble, and for food, water, and medical supplies. At that time Mao's wife and the rest of the Gang of Four were in charge and they didn't want to admit to the need for foreign assistance. For weeks, people in Beijing camped outside (it was the summer) for fear of aftershocks. Almost the entire city had to be rebuilt.

What's not been reported much is that the Bird's Nest in Beijing, the new Olympic stadium, is only designed to withstand a 8.0 earthquake, and this is now confirmed at 7.9 on the Richter Scale. Of course, the epicenter was much farther away than Tangshan in Hebei Province (which wraps around Beijing Shi).

Another point not made by any correspondents: it is common knowledge in China that schools in the countryside are built with cheaper materials for the most part. The three-story high school that collapsed on 900 students is indicative of this problem. Many have been constructed more cheaply than even planned, with local corruption of construction efforts for government kickbacks. It will be interesting to see if parents make accusations to this effect, as they are prone to do these days.

Many China watchers get nervous when they see the size of the army there. But the PLA is so huge in part to react to natural disasters like this, which are way beyond the ability of local rescue units to respond to adequately.

I just hope all the rabid anti-Chinese on this board and elsewhere will have the decency to separate their disdain for the government (which I also share) from the plight of the people.

I wish to God someone would teach these lazy international correspondents and journalists at home how to pronounce "Beijing." The "j" is a hard sound; not like the "j" in French.

[Big_Bird]

[chris_J2]

Many Tibetans live side by side with the Han Chinese, in Sichuan. So anyone trying to politicise this tragic event, should bear that in mind.

[bookemdanno]

Big Bird:

Good question: the Himalayan tectonic plates are some of the most volatile in the world so minor earthquakes often occur. The big ones usually hit in the countryside (nearly 70% of all Chinese still live there), with the notable exception of Tangshan in 1976.

Yes, population density plays a large part as does inadequate or ill-timed rescue-relief efforts (though these have improved greatly in the past two decades and are, of course, not nearly as bad as in Myanmar or Bangladesh when it comes to monsoon flooding).

Also, as mentioned before, the quality of building construction in rural areas leaves much to be desired. China has only four building codes: 1) international standard, limited to certain districts in key metro areas; 2) northeast, which uses thicker walls because of the cold; 3) northern and north central zone, less thick and sturdy and 4) southern and southwestern (including most of Sichuan) which is thinner and usually flimsy because of warmer climes.

Building inspections are sporadic and haphazard, although again it depends on the expense in construction and the cost of owning or renting there.

Look for the death toll to mount upward of 15,000, perhaps even 20,000 before all the bodies are dug from the rubble. And the number of injured will be triple that, especially given the woefully inadequate medical facilities in rural areas. I've been in a few of them; they are atrocious, unsanitary, overcrowded, understaffed and underequipped.

By contrast, the large metro areas have some that rival and even exceed those in Seoul and Tokyo in every respect with the addition of traditional Chinese medicine.

[chris_J2]

List of deadliest earthquakes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes#Deadliest_earthquakes_on_record

Yingxiu township in Wenchuan county was especially hardhit. "Only 2,000 were found alive in the town of 12,000, according to He Biao, a local official.

"They could hear people under the debris calling for help, but no one could, because there were no professional rescue teams," state television quoted He as saying.

About 60,000 people were unaccounted for in Wenchuan, where 600 armed police were due to arrive before dawn on Wednesday."

Also worrying, is the state of dams:

"Li said several reservoirs upstream of the Min river, a tributary of the Yangtze flowing through the quake-hit region, were "in a very dangerous status and the dams may burst".

Flood relief authorities had ordered officials to "thoroughly inspect and remove hidden dangers of dams", Xinhua said. Landslides had blocked the path of a river in Sichuan's neighbouring province of Gansu."

The main 3 gorges dam withstood the earthquake, but I don't know what the effect of a massive flash flood from a collapsed dam upstream, would do?

Source: SMH http://news.smh.com.au/death-toll-from-china-quake-past-12000/20080514-2dxe.html

[Big_Bird]