On the afternoon of the 12th of May 2008, a threatening 8.0-magnitude of earthquake occurred on the Northwest of Chengdu, Sichuan and Southwest of Beijing in China. The China Official stated that 69,227 people were confirmed dead, 68,636people were in Sichuan territory and 374,176 people were injured with 18,222people were missing. The earthquake caused about 5 million people homeless. An estimation of 5.36 million buildings collapsed and more than 21 million buildings were damaged in Sichuan, Chongqing, Gansu, Hubei, Shaanxi and Yunnan were part of the affected area. The total economic loss was estimated 86 billion US dollars. The most affected area like Beichuan, Dujiangyan, Wuolong and Yingxiu were almost completely destroyed. This Sichuan earthquake is the most stunning earthquake happened in China since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 which killed at least 240,000 people.
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The roads, railways and buildings were damaged and destroyed by landslides and rock falls which were formed by the earthquake, the landside created more than 34 barrier lakes which intimidated about 700,000 people at downstream to evacuate. The road access to the region of Chengdu was cut off for a number of days. The communications of the entire city were almost broke down. The rescue teams had to proceed to the scene for more than 3 days by foot.
Several months later, the nightmare wasn’t ended. The aftershocks was still continued to hit the area, some of them surpassed 6 magnitudes that caused more victims and damages lost.
Regardless of the large death rate in this earthquake, questions and voices raised about thousands of the initial quake’s victims were children buried in shoddily built schools. Even the government institution building like hospitals, schools and factories were completely collapsed in several different areas around Sichuan. It was questioned by the parents of children and the media, how rigorously the China has been enforced the building’s code during this century. Therefore, the central government of China declared on it would use 1 trillion Renminbi (around $146.5 billion) in the coming three years to reconstruct areas ravaged after the earthquake.
CONSEQUENCE OF THE EARTHQUAKE
Health and Pollution
The health problem in affected areas is terrible, mainly due to the lack of clean water, resulting in victims fouling and rubbish is everywhere. In addition, fires, gas leaks and water pollution are the environmental problem after the Sichuan earthquake.
Communication
All communication in Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei and other places is interrupted by the earthquake, the three provinces of public communications network infrastructure was severely damaged. Due to the sudden increased in communications, the usage of local long-distance telephone in Sichuan has risen to more than 10 times, cell phone receive rate dropped to half of the average.
Sichuan Aba area of about 200 base station network paralysis; Chengdu communications network is fortunately normal, but network is busy, voice message is 7 times of usual and the SMS is 2 times of usual that resulting in congestion and SMS communication delay.
Traffic
Road damaged by the earthquake which affected the aviation, Chengdu International Airport shut down immediately after the earthquake.
Railways, the Baoji-Chengdu Railway and Chengdu-Kunming railway line extension and the related multiple collapsed.
Highways, the earthquake caused landslides, avalanches and other secondary disasters which resulting the roads in the disaster areas and the infrastructure severely damaged and enormous loss.
Landform and Water
Earthquake caused the collapse of the Minjiang River and areas of landscape change that induced a large number of secondary mountain hazards, mainly landslides, debris flow, etc., in the active stage of secondary disasters after the earthquake, landslide active landslide will continue of 5-10 years, the active debris flow will continue of 10-20 years. In addition, the earthquake in Wenchuan, Beichuan and other areas formed 34 barrier lakes; and the Tangjiashan Barrier Lake is the most dangerous one.
Ecology
The homes of Wolong giant panda in Sichuan were destroyed by the earthquake mountain collapse, landslide, debris flow and land subsidence. Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu Province ecosystems are damaged in large area, bare soil, rivers blocked and geomorphology changed that affected the water conservation function, soil conservation function and biodiversity maintenance function to serious jeopardy.
Finance and Industry
After the earthquake, the Agricultural Development Bank in Beichuan County branch is affected, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange are unable to contact the listed company of Sichuan and Chongqing, and decided to suspend the 66 listed companies of both countries.
The insurance industry, due to the amount insured and the insurance is low, after the earthquake, the disaster area is paid only $1.806 billion by the insurance industry.
For Industry, the affected industrial enterprises in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces reached 17,923companies. The direct economic loss is $104.87 billion and other economic loss is about $83 billion.
LEsson learned
The earthquake happened in Sichuan, it took few days to grasp all the damages and number of casualty involved. All telecommunication was cut off, roads and bridges were destroyed by earthquake. Rescue team required to proceed to the affected area by climbing up mountains and crossing rivers by foot which caused a serious delay for the first response of the disaster. In this disaster, more than 90 % of casualties were killed by collapsed buildings. Most damaged buildings could not sustain the shock of the earthquake, even the government institution building. It obviously showed that the building code may not be upon standard or the enforcement action did not strictly comply by the local government. Introducing minimum safety standards for new building construction can largely reduce the risk from future earthquakes. In particular, improvements in the design and construction of reinforced concrete frame buildings with brick infill, in order to reduce the increase in risk. Furthermore, the urban planning in earthquake-prone regions can be improved by strengthen the buildings become more differcuit to collapse when they are shivered by earthquakes.
In view of the damages were too large for local government to cope with and medical cooperation was not effective enough to rescue the casualties in the golden time. As such, the Emergency Response Plans should be recognized that for the first several hours after an earthquake, the first response is going to come from the local communities. Hence, training programs involving local volunteers are important to reduce the life loss from an earthquake.
An aggressive planning and training in schools should be carried out by children knowing what to do when the shaking began. Drills should be undertaken to test the emergency response plans and keep them current with respect to changing conditions. Governmental institutions and civil society organizations should accept policies and develop programs for pro-active preparedness and mitigation instead of being concerns by response only. Awareness programs, preventive actions and long term mitigation policies will result in more responsible and capable institutions, more engaged communities and a more aware civil society. Urban risk reduction must be viewed as a partnership between the government and its citizenship.
Lack of systematical rescue procedures were also noted in this disaster. A Government Logistic Centre should be established, in order to gather all the resources, supporting from Nation Wide Agency, Medical Supporting Team and Voluntary Rescue team from other country. However, the Government disaster plan should be developed to identify the resources that can respond to disaster immediately. These resources include both the human potential as well as the availability of heavy equipment, which hindered the immediate intervention of search and rescue on affected areas.
Perform basic calculations to estimate the impact of the Sichuan earthquake
Top 10 most important Earthquake (seismic activity) disasters for the period 1900 to 2010
Country
Date
No Total Affected
China P Rep, Earthquake (ground shaking)
12/05/2008
45976596
India, Earthquake (ground shaking)
21/08/1988
20003766
India, Earthquake (ground shaking)
26/01/2001
6321812
Pakistan, Earthquake (ground shaking)
8/10/2005
5128000
China P Rep, Earthquake (ground shaking)
3/02/1996
5077795
Guatemala, Earthquake (ground shaking)
4/02/1976
4993000
Haiti, Earthquake (ground shaking)
12/01/2010
3700000
Peru, Earthquake (ground shaking)
31/05/1970
3216240
Indonesia, Earthquake (ground shaking)
27/05/2006
3177923
China P Rep, Earthquake (ground shaking)
1/11/1999
3020004
Source: “EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database www.em-dat.net – Université Catholique de Louvain – Brussels – Belgium”
Earthquake depends on what kind it is issued by the district, if the earthquake occurred in sparsely populated areas which loss of life and property with little or no. However, if the earthquake occurred is a modern city, there will result in lives and property great loss. In addition to the economic value of material damage, the earthquake should be considered as a result of direct and indirect economic consequences, such as urban and rural migration, production interruption, health and other social services temporary to provide normally.
We can be observed from above table, the Sichuan earthquake have brought the huge implications for loss of life and property. The number of total affected in the Sichuan earthquake are 45976596 which impact large than other countries.
Comparison with natural disaster in Eastern Asia in 2008
Dates
Geo
Disaster
Numbers
Start
End
Location
Type
Killed
Total Affected
Est. Damage (US$ Million)
00/11/2008
00/00/2009
China -Henan, Anhui, Shanxi
Drought
3700000
234.294
25/05/2008
25/05/2008
China – Qingzhou, Sichuan
Earthquake (ground shaking)
8
351000
26/12/2008
26/12/2008
China -Yunnan province
Earthquake (ground shaking)
95019
06/10/2008
06/10/2008
China -Near Ningzhong, Yangi
Earthquake (ground shaking)
30
754
30/08/2008
30/08/2008
China -Miyi, Lihui , Panzhihua
Earthquake (ground shaking)
40
1000589
492
21/08/2008
21/08/2008
China -Yingjiang (Yunnan province)
Earthquake (ground shaking)
6
160
05/08/2008
05/08/2008
China -Sichuan province
Earthquake (ground shaking)
4
13529
12/05/2008
12/05/2008
China -Wenchuan country, Wencgua
Earthquake (ground shaking)
87476
45976596
85000
14/02/2008
18/02/2008
China -Yunnan province
Extreme winter conditions
16
10/01/2008
05/02/2008
China -Zhejiang, Sichuan, Anhui
Extreme winter conditions
129
77000000
21100
07/07/2008
07/07/2008
China -Hubei, Yunnan provinces
General Flood
19
3000000
102
10/10/2008
16/10/2008
China -Hainan Island
General Flood
3
50000
31/10/2008
04/11/2008
China -Yunnan, Guangxi provinces
General Flood
67
411000
29
07/08/2008
11/08/2008
China -Jinghong (Yunan province)
General Flood
20
810000
42
02/05/2008
05/05/2008
China -Dangyang, Shayang
General Flood
3
780000
19
07/06/2008
22/06/2008
China -Jiangxi, Guangxi
General Flood
176
1600000
2200
27/05/2008
05/06/2008
China -Guizhou, Hubei, Guangxi
General Flood
64
538166
08/07/2008
08/07/2008
China -Long en village
Landslide
15
08/09/2008
08/09/2008
China -Taoshi, near Linfen
Landslide
277
35
13/06/2008
13/06/2008
China -Luliang (Shanxi province
Landslide
19
14/03/2008
14/03/2008
China -Near Huocheng County
Landslide
12
03/06/2008
03/06/2008
China -Zhoukou (Henan province)
Local storm
10
100
23
17/04/2008
19/04/2008
China -Xinjiang
Local storm
733
28/09/2008
28/09/2008
China -Ningle, Fuzhou, Putian
Tropical cyclone
24/09/2008
25/09/2008
China -Near Maoming, Yanjiang
Tropical cyclone
12
824
22/08/2008
23/08/2008
China -Canton, Shenzhen
Tropical cyclone
4
900000
58
08/08/2008
11/08/2008
China -Leizhou Peninsula
Tropical cyclone
42000
80
28/07/2008
08/08/2008
China -Yuexi, Jinzhai
Tropical cyclone
1
93006
73
24/06/2008
27/06/2008
China -Sichuan, Guandong
Tropical cyclone
14
340000
175
19/04/2008
19/04/2008
China -Shenzhen, Hainan
Tropical cyclone
25
274000
49
25/09/2008
25/09/2008
Hong Kong (China)
Tropical cyclone
58
22/09/2008
22/09/2008
Hong Kong (China)
Tropical cyclone
2
112
0.38
05/08/2008
05/08/2008
Hong Kong (China)
Tropical cyclone
37
23/07/2008
24/07/2008
Japan -Hachinohe
Earthquake (ground shaking)
1
470
110
14/06/2008
14/06/2008
Japan -Iwate, Miyazaki, Miyagi
Earthquake (ground shaking
23
448
167
28/07/2008
29/07/2008
Japan -Kobe , Kanazawa
General Flood
5
50003
04/05/2008
04/05/2008
Korea -Boryeong
Storm surge/coastal Flood
10
13
01/05/2008
10/09/2008
Mongolia -Ulaanbaatar, Sukhbaatar
Viral Infectious Diseases
3151
16/09/2008
16/09/2008
Taiwan – Nantou
Tropical cyclone
52
28/09/2008
28/09/2008
Taiwan – Ilan county
Tropical cyclone
30
60
90
23/09/2008
23/09/2008
Taiwan (China)
Tropical cyclone
1
18/07/2008
19/07/2008
Taiwan -Stratit, Yilan
Tropical cyclone
26
8
16
27/07/2008
27/07/2008
Taiwan – Nantou county
Tropical cyclone
2
10
Source: “EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database www.em-dat.net – Université Catholique de Louvain – Brussels – Belgium”
Comparison with the number of killed from natural disaster in China in 2008
Source: “EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database www.em-dat.net – Université Catholique de Louvain – Brussels – Belgium”
The above chart is shown as the number of 87564 killed people from natural disaster in China. The earthquake was largest number of killed people than other natural disaster. Departments should focus on research institute in the future to prevent the recurrence of earthquakes. Reducing earthquake disasters on human life and property loss and damage caused.
Comparison with estimate damage ($US million) from natural disaster in Eastern Asia in 2008
Source: “EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database www.em-dat.net – Université Catholique de Louvain – Brussels – Belgium”
In economic losses, natural disasters occurred in China far more than other countries. Thus, the result has been impact on the economy to slow down the development of China’s development.
Estimation the impact of the earthquake
The Sichuan earthquake led at minimum 5 million people missing housing. The estimate impact of economics might be as high as 11 million. Uncountable of agriculture were also damaged with 12.5 million animals and birds. In the Sichuan province a lot of pigs who died from out of the total number of 60 million. Catastrophe modeling firm “air worldwide” announced official evaluates of bought insurance amount about losses at US$1 billion in the earthquake, estimated total destroy over US$20 billion. There are including the values Chengdu, Sichuan Province’s capital city of 4.5 million people, worth US$115 billion, and having only a small part included by insurance.
Multi-layered urban system
LB
HA
IS
SE
NE
Fast
Slow
Speed of change
Space
Narrow
Vast
HA – Human Activities
LB – Land-use and Built environment
IS – InfraStructure
SE – Social Environment
NE – Natural Environment
“Ye Yaoxian 2008, Earthquake Disaster Comparatology”
City is a multi-layered system that includes other five levels of Natural Environment, Social Environment, InfraStructure, Land-use and Built environment, Human Activities. The above chart could estimate for urban speed of change to prevent unbalance between human activities and natural environment. Urban earthquake disaster is the earthquake struck the city of all these systems, so that the city’s multi-level system of quality and functional decline. It is making the city the most vulnerable and potential dysfunction. A city could not stand the test of earthquake destruction. It depends on every level and all levels of interaction with suitable the methods and functions. China must harmonious development and sustainable management of our cities to economic afford the impact of the earthquake.
Earthquake disaster is huge accident. The contributing factors of the earthquake disaster and characterized mainly the following four:
Low frequency for occurrence of earthquake
Disastrous earthquake in the same place where may take a hundred years or even centuries. Living in the earthquake risk residents, a life may not meet case of strong earthquake, or even generations also cannot feel by the cruel and powerful in the earthquake. Therefore, people undergo a seismic zone earthquake in the blood of the lesson often forgotten.
Destruction of large areas by earthquake disaster
Earthquake on the built environment, social environment and the natural environment will have major damage and impact. The damage will not only directly affect a country’s vast area, and may spread to the country, and even the world. Therefore, a comprehensive defense of this area of the disaster damage, not only requires enormous human and material resources, but also need a scientific decision support.
High uncertainty to predict future earthquake
We cannot accurately predict future earthquake time, location and magnitude of the three elements. Nowadays, we are in order to use the limited human and material resources to deal with a lot of uncertainty in the disaster that is almost impossible obviously.
Strong interaction with natural and social factor
Earthquake disaster is not only a natural phenomenon. There have also social, economic and environmental phenomena. Earthquake disaster will be the system with multi-level interaction. If the earthquake occurred in the undeveloped areas, although unexpected that but it will not form a disaster; However, if in a modern international metropolis, the world will be affected and impact. Different countries, from government to private plans are developed and adopted various measures to mitigate natural disasters, developed and developing countries start and finish a lot of assistance cooperation projects.
Human factors involved in Sichuan earthquake
Social and Political Factor
After the earthquake, the Chinese government was quickly response to the earthquake that should be appreciation but its school construction scandal. The central government evaluates where over 7,000 not suitable engineered schoolrooms toppled in the earthquake. Chinese residents have since developed a catch phrase: “tofu-dregs schoolhouses” to fake materials with the quantity of structure of building which killed a lot of school children. It is because China’s the policy of one-child, many families lost their only child while schools in the area of collapsed in the earthquake. Therefore, local officials in Sichuan province have cancelled the limit for families that only child was either killed or fatally injured in the disaster.
Uneven urban development in China, especially Sichuan where were resulted in city marginalized. Sichuan public transport facilities are crude. There was difficult to access from the rescue terms. The problem has become serious in China’s rich and poor. The well urban political planning is very important.
Human vulnerability
After the quake, donations from China and around the world were constantly. How many of the real victims could reach the help directly. It is because China’s corruption problem is serious. Builders purchase building materials in the corruption or taking their commission. The result was produced “tofu-dregs schoolhouses” to reduce the quality of these inferior constructions.
Sichuan Earthquake (Yr 2008) implication
Sichuan earthquake is a disaster for two reasons: it is both an exceptional seismic event in itself, and exceeded the human abilities in the Sichuan province to encounter it. The combination of those two elements explains why this earthquake is a major disaster, with great losses. Regarding the casualties, the Sichuan earthquake is the second most important natural disaster in the world in 2008 (the first is the Nargis typhoon in Burma). But if we take into account the affected population and the economic losses, Wenchuan earthquake ranks first.
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The earthquake was indeed particularly devastating. The region’s high vulnerability is one of the reasons for these dreadful damages, but it is not the only explanation. We can quickly name some of the earthquake’s characteristics which explain the importance of damages. Ground motion observations from the earthquake indicate a long duration of ground shaking-over 100 seconds in most areas, and in rare cases as high as a few hundred seconds. The long duration of ground motion is a challenging issue in earthquake engineering because of its continuous impact, accumulating the damaging effects and compounding the development of fractures within engineering structures. As seismic waves travel through the ground, they produce both vertical and horizontal ground shaking effects, which have different structural impacts that must be accounted for in building design (Risk Management Solution, Stanford University). The vertical component of the Wenchuan earthquake was particularly important, increasing the damages to buildings. The surface ruptures were also exceptional and caused lots of damage (Xiwei Xu et al).
There are also economic and social damage. A number of buildings and infrastructures have been destroyed or damaged. This had a significant impact on the local economy and on people’s living conditions. According to the Integrated Risk Governance Project Report (Peijun Shi et al, China) the earthquake damaged the following infrastructures: 24 express ways, 163 national and provincial highways, 7 important railways and 3 smaller ones, 22 airports (among them Chengdu airport). The electricity, communication, radio, television and water conservation infrastructures were also damaged, so were some cultural relics. 6 counties and 125 cities lacked electricity. More than 30 000
communication stations, 1 096 radio and television stations, 2473 major reservoirs, 822 electric stations, 1 105 dykes and 20 769 pipes were damaged. Roads were cut, so the access to some areas became difficult. These damages caused a degradation of the living conditions of a part of the population. For example, the damages to water pipes had consequences for 10.5 million people. The losses also concerned industry and agriculture. 17826 companies were affected and 5645 major industrial companies stopped production. In Sichuan and Gansu, 137000 hectares of crops and 486 000 hectares of forest were destroyed. Of course, the most important damage for people’s living conditions was the collapse of buildings. 15,106 million people have been displaced, essentially because of this reason (but also in order to dodge secondary disasters, such as lakes which were formed after the earthquake and could overflow, or such as landslides). Six months after the disaster, there were still 5 million people who lived in temporary houses or even in tents. The amount of these losses is huge. The economic losses reached 845,136 billion Yuan in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi (with 771,717 billion Yuan only for Sichuan).
Apart from the lossess on economic and society, and it was corrosion in the school buildings scandal. The Chinese central government estimates that over 7,000 poor engineered school rooms were collapsed in the earthquake., and such constructions that killed so many school children.
Emergency Response
Numbers of rescue personnel where have brigades from the People’s Liberation Army going into action within 24 hours. However, Rescue efforts were very difficult from the beginning, owing to the difficult environment situation and the extensive damage to the basic public facilities. All roads delivery to Wenchuan Xian (Sichuan) had been stopped and rescuer should access to Wenchuan and this parameter on foot. In the days and weeks that followed, outside resources and personnel were delivered to the disaster zone.
Reconstruction and Long Term Recovery Efforts
The China State Council support for the Sichuan re-construction, the most pressing issue is to relief millions of persons as many of them still losing their home and most keep going to stay in temporary shelters of one kind or others. The Central Government of China is giving the pressure and using resources to built up the new housing when the coming of Winter.
The earthquake: a shock which raises awareness about risk management
The earthquake is also some kind of a test to the top management of PRC Government’s reaction and abilities in general, and shock which raises awareness for the risk / emergency management system in particular.
The growing importance attached to the principle of responsibility, the PRC Governments’ supervision of help are elements which can get a new importance in the future Chinese policy.
Conclusion
The Sichuan (Wenchuan) earthquake is a large-scale disaster which struck the Sichuan province, and more particularly its underdeveloped western part. Sichuan is one of the numerous Chinese provinces where earthquake risk is high: China is a country marked by natural disasters in general and earthquakes in particular. The disaster was a trial for the Chinese government and its administration, which both already had to deal with the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, at the end of the Cultural Revolution when China was far less developed than it is today. The management of the Wenchuan earthquake seems to be a rupture because of its efficiency and of the open attitude of the government, and of the multiplicity of actors who took part in relief work. In spite of difficulties, the solidarity outburst which occurred was unprecedented in the country. The time of crisis was followed by recovery, then rebuilding. This last moment was an opportunity to initiate new dynamics – taking into account antiseismic norms in a more efficient way, better urban planning, programmes which integrate struggle against poverty, and also creating symbols and memorial places of the disaster. But dynamics related to this event do not only concern affected areas: the event generated a broader rise of awareness about risk issues, and had repercussions at a national scale. As a matter of fact, there are a growing number of reflections and measures about risk and disaster management in the whole administration: at a national level, but also at local officials’, who fear the possibility of occurrence of a disaster in their own region. In any way, risk and disaster management appears like an important issue in land planning, and cannot be separated from economic and social development questions.
The analysis of the Wenchuan earthquake can be a first approach to larger inquiries about natural disasters in China and their management for two reasons. First, it was a major disaster, which has already become a reference. Thus, its analysis can be a model to compare other events. Then, the earthquake triggered an unprecedented reaction: how are these dynamics going to evolve? This study focuses on seismic disasters, particularly on one event, whose size was exceptional.
It aroused reactions and a rise of awareness which are also exceptional. China is marked by lots of disasters, which are usually less important and less spectacular. Making a list of common points and differences in the management of these different phenomena could be interesting. All of them are not national events like the Wenchuan earthquake was. Is the relative discretion of smaller disasters an obstacle for their taking into account by authorities and actors of land settlement?
The Wenchuan disaster revealed many things about society and the government in China because it is an exceptional situation, a deviation from the norm. The media have built a specific memory about natural disasters, by showing the most “sensational” , elements or those whose description and visualization are the easiest… so they have creat
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