The Wenchuan Earthquake and the Lushan Earthquake - Essay Example

A Research Conference DECIPHERING THE FUTURE: EXPLORATIONS INTO THE GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION Urban Seismic Risk and its management: The Sichuan Provence 2008-2013 Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Focus (futures) 4 Approach (methodologies) AQAL 5 Abstract The Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 and the Lushan Earthquake in 2013 occurred in the same province of Eastern China, the Sichuan province. The Earthquakes measured 7.9 and 6.6 on the Richter scale respectively; the 2008 event had a disaster zone of 440,000km2 (Chen, 2009)causing over 88,000 deaths (Dong, 2012), 374,643 injuries (Qui, 2013), leaving more than four million homeless, affecting over half of China (Xu and Lu, 2013). The effects are still being felt today, as poor infrastructure and building techniques within villages and towns all over China were not designed to withstand such seismic activity (BBC News, 2014). We will be examining the government’s approach to urban construction; how they protect their urban areas from seismic shocks and the extent to which they go to protect their cities, using the comparison of rural areas where planning and seismic withstanding buildings are ignored and forgotten. This report will also consider the controversies related to these government plans and government culture, such as Geng Qing-Guo’s ignored prediction of the 2008Wenchuan Earthquake and the art and activist work of Ai Weiwei. AQAL framework will be used to help us demonstrate and consider all perspectives. Subject matter (Geographical Imagination) Our title proposal ensures that the grounds of the module and conference subject matter are covered by focusing on deciphering the future through the topic of earthquake management. We will be exploring geographical imagination through highlighting the way in which people, whether geographers or non-geographers, envisage and understand the Sichuan province and the spaces and environments around them, as well as also headlining the consequences of so doing. We aim to underline Geography’s role in imagining how Urban Seismic Risk has emerged within densely populated areas, such as Beijing,and will continue to develop using reports of two earthquakes in this same location to accumulate justifications and perceptions of these types of building and the differentiation of features in the area. These issues will be highlighted by key controversial figures such as GengQingguo and Ai Weiwei and their roles within the urban seismic risk of the Sichuan area. With allegations of corruption and official wrongdoing being surfaced about the five-year-long reconstruction efforts of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, we aim to look into various effects of this, to include the jail sentence and house arrest of Ai Weiwei, with reference to his art and its underlying meanings and the ignorance of the Chinese government to events such as a major earthquake prediction. We propose to compare the two earthquakes raising issues of management, seismic risk, economic and political involvement and future plans put in place. The conference theme will help highlight what the earthquake struck area is currently like. To do this we will be asking questions such as; is the Sichuan province ready for the next hit? Is there any current government legislation written to help protect these huge urban and rural communities? Is it even possible to make these areas safer when future earthquakes strike? From these questions we not only hope to show geographical imagination but also use and build upon the answers to decipher plans for the future as a way of envisioning, experiencing and reshaping the Sichuan province and its seismic risk(Daniels, 2011, 182). Focus (futures) The Sichuan Earthquake of 2008 and the Lushan Earthquake in 2013 caused devastation throughout China. This is seen firstly inphysical terms; seen in the immediate, severe damage caused to over 15 million buildings on both sides of the fault line (Dong, 2012), and secondly in social terms, specifically seen in the treatment and disappearance of Ai WeiWei.Some of his art pieces relate directly to the lack of government care with regard to buildings in rural areas and the many thousands of children lost due to this. We are going to see how the Chinese government have responded to these claims, and how they are preparing, if at all, to help these communities prepare for the next disaster. The focus is to examine three main areas: 1. How urban construction is apparent in Chinese cities and so very absent in rural areas 2. How activist, art and international attention against the Chinese government is received by the CCP with regard to disasters caused by apparent lack of planning or care 3. How predictions against these hugely destructive disasters were ignored and the consequences of this decision. In both earthquakes the majority of deaths were the results of poor building structure resulting in collapse; modern construction techniques are therefore being instigated in order to prevent this happening again. Ideas to prevent events like this occurring are currently being examined by the Chinese Government, especially with the rebuild of these areas after the disasters, such as developing buildings that are elevated from the ground, meaning vibrations from Earthquakes will not be transferred into the buildings. Approach (methodologies) AQAL AQAL mapping has been chosen to allow the topic to be considered from alternative perspectives, in this case the rural villagers and the urban, central governments.It will also allow for a critical angle to be taken on all the topics discussed within the presentation. The upper and lower left quadrants will be used to identify with the rural community on the matter, looking at the ‘I’ and ‘We’; the upper right and lower right quadrants (also recognised for flatland thinking) will be used to relate to the perspectives from the government and urban areas (Wilber, 2003). Only when all of these perspectives have been considered can an understanding of the situation be reached and considered. We aim to use this technique to analyse the government’s actions both before and after the earthquake, to see how the situation was handled with regards to reconstruction, social care and funding. Discussion An earthquake is defined by Cree (2009, p.11) as the shaking of the earth as a result of waves that are moving on and below the surface of the earth causing tremors vibration, surface faulting, landslides, liquefaction, and/or tsunamis. The Sichuan Earthquake of 2008 caused severe damage to buildings in Sichuan Province in China. The Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 and Lushan Earthquaeke in 2013 occurred in this same province. China is made up of twenty-three (23) provinces, five (5) autonomous regions, four (4) municipalities, and two (2) administrative regions. The Sichuan 2008 disaster is among the largest earthquakes in relation to socio-economic losses. AQAL framework will be used to help us demonstrate and consider all perspectives. Figure 1: Showing AQAL framework (Wilber, 2003). Goda (2013) asserts that on April 20, 2013, a dreadful earthquake disaster happened in Sichuan China. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake had a magnitude of 6.6 events, and originated from the Longmenshan fault. By April 27th, the number of fatalities was 217. In addition, more than 13, 000 people were injured and 2 million and above affected by the earthquake. On May 12, 2008 a total of 69,000 deaths occurred. From the perspective of risk management in earthquake, these two tragic events remind the people two very crucial facts. First, the damage caused by the earthquake is as a result of the implemented seismic protection as well as the experienced seismic hazard. This implies that the damage results when the seismic demands supersedes the seismic capacity of the building or structure. As cited by (Jiaquan, 2013), evidence has pointed out that the provisions of the seismic design for infrastructure and buildings as well their implementation in the Sichuan province were actually not sufficient even after the occurrence of the 2008 earthquake. During the recent event, the newly constructed buildings were badly damaged or collapsed. Vale and Campanella (2013) assert that urban areas have their own ways of recovering from disaster such as earthquakes. The urban seismic risk has emerged within densely populated areas, such as Beijing. Numerous risks can be reduced with good earthquake construction and seismic analysis. New construction need to comply with the strict building codes, and also buildings should be designed for loads that exceed the seismic. In urban areas, the mitigation of secondary seismic hazards is through the planning. China set up the goal to completing the detailed reconstruction planning in three months and the overall reconstruction work within 3 years. On the contrary, it is widely known that disaster recovery and reconstruction is a long-term process that entails economic recovery, physical reconstruction, and social reconstruction. Disaster recovery is characterized as a long, difficult, complex, and often chaotic process that includes the physical repair and reconstruction, reorganization and reestablishment of the whole damaged socio-economic network in the affected area. In the meantime, the scope of recovery is very wide, and the process always entails a sequence of ongoing and related processes; about all of these events may occur at the same time and continue for varied lengths of time beyond the event (Schwab et al, 1998, p.57). Miyamoto (2008) asserts that this strong earthquake impacted on the housing, businesses and industries in the area. As result, it provides valuable risk management lessons both in China and globally. The quake destroyed several unreinforced buildings and also non-ductile concrete buildings. Adequate techniques and devices that would have mitigated the seismic change of the physical structures include dampers, ductile connections, and isolations among many others. If these methods were available, these damages would have been reduced significantly. It is very crucial to recognise that reconstruction and recovery from disasters offers us with the chances to fix the initial problems. Secondly, the major earthquakes usually occur repeatedly in similar seismic regions. They are often triggered by events that will lead to significant change. However, it is argued that the previous event of 2008 had some substantial influence over the occurrence of the 2013 earthquake via detailed interaction within the fault system of the Longmenshan. It is quite evident that the current probabilistic seismic hazard and frameworks for risk analysis are appropriate in addressing the aftershock impact in the assessment. It is usually majorly focused on the effects because of the mainshocks that are modelled by stationary Poisson processes or some renewal processes. In a post-mainshock circumstance, the generation of aftershock processes are no longer time variant. For instance, an Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model is a workable technique since it is focused on the temporal features of an aftershock occurrence (Ogata and Zhang, 2006). After the Wenchuan Earthquake, strong aftershocks that exceeded a magnitude of 6 continued to hit the area months after the main earthquake resulting to new casualties and damages. The earthquake left an estimated 4.7 million people without homes (Hooker, 2008), even though the number may be about 11 million (BBC News, 2014), in the affected area, about 15 million persons lived there..Since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is regarded as the deadliest earthquake to hit China. As a result, as part of the Chinese economic stimulus plan, the central government announced that it would spend about 1 trillion Yuan ($146.5 billion) in the following three (3) years in order to rebuild the areas that were ravaged by the earthquake. Using the AQAL mapping, although the Chinese government was lauded for its quick response to the earthquake, it then saw deteriorations in confidence over the scandals in school constructions. The Chinese approximated that over 7,100 inadequately engineered classrooms collapsed during the earthquake. Since then, the Chinese citizens have mocked the quantity and of these inferior structures that led to the death of numerous school going children (Miyamoto, 2008). This implies that the government did not properly inspect the schools that were constructed in the rural areas such as Sichuan province as compared to the urban schools that are given a much better attention. Most of the schools and hospital buildings in Sichuan were made of unreinforced masonry construction. Deadly combinations of the precast concrete or beam systems with bearing unreinforced masonry walls were also utilised. These structural systems have been found to be very poor paths for lateral load and have no significant energy dissipation. For many of these structures, the structural performance relied on the orientation of the unreinforced masonry party walls. Most of the urban structures have better orientation of the shear walls. They are also constructed with shorter floor spans. Some of the industries are made of precast roof panels over steel trusses that are supported by the steel columns (Miyamoto, 2008), On May 29, 2008, the government officials started inspecting the ruins of the numerous schools that had collapsed. Majority of the parents around Sichuan province accused the constructors as well as the local officials of cutting corners during the construction of the schools. They argued that other buildings that were nearby the school were minimally damaged. The locals assert that even after formally investing the school collapse, they were yet to receive any reports. Furthermore, they were censors that discouraged the publications of stories in the media about poorly built schools. There were certain instances where the police drove the people away who were protesting demanding for thorough investigations about the schools collapse in Sichuan Province. Jacobs (2008) argues that as a result of the one-child policy, several families lost their only child when the earthquake occurred in Sichuan province. To show the ignorance on the Chinese government to events such earthquake, an article in the China Digital Times pointed out that the rural areas are least protected seismic shocks as compared to the urban areas and cities. One construction engineer argues that schools in the rural or poor areas have small budgets and the capital is usually not enough, unlike the schools and other structures in the cities. The rural schools cannot collect more fees, thus they are pressed for money. With the exploitation by the state officials, school managers and education officials, very little is left for the construction of the schools. If the standards of earthquake prevention are raised, major businesses in the city and government departments will appraise and go ahead and reinforce their structures. However, these schools with the majority of them built in the 1970s; no one pays attention to them, even the Chinese central government. This has made the Sichuan province not be adequately ready for the next hit. As a consequence, the older buildings in the rural areas such as schools usually suffer from inadequate protection, while the new buildings that are being constructed in the region are shoddily constructed. This implies that these areas are not safe when future earthquakes strike. The other argument that shows that the Sichuan province is not ready for the next hit is that the government officials in both Sichuan and Beijing acknowledged that there were weaknesses of the building codes in the countryside. The central government is doing very little so as to improve the construction standards of buildings and infrastructure in the rural areas such as Sichuan. Over 70% of the collapsed houses during earthquakes are in the rural areas. Traditionally, houses were built by the particular person who was planning to live in it. Unlike the rural structures, those in the urban areas are equipped with earthquake resistant technology and construction is done with close supervision. The structures in the rural areas are susceptible because the owners are not aware of the safety policy, and there is also lack of money (Jiaquan, 2013). On 15th of May 2008, Geoffrey York of the Globeandmail pointed out that the substandard buildings that are commonly known as ‘tofu buildings’ due to the fact the constructors cut corners by making replacements of the steel rods with some thin iron wires for concrete re-enforcement; making use of inferior grade cement and using fewer bricks/block as recommended conventionally. The BBS News (2013) reported that most houses in the countryside were built with mud-bricks. From the news it is also evident that most schools were not built to the level of withstanding such an earthquake since the quake collapsed numerous classrooms. This led to the death of very many children who were in school at that time. The central government ignorance is further portrayed in the work of Geng Qingguo. Gingguo, a Chinese geologist, was quoted saying to have predicted the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. He also predicted a 7+ magnitude that will strike Ngawa Prefecture in Sichuan on May 8, 2008, plus or minus 10 days (Zhang, 2008). This prediction was ultimately dismissed by the mainstream seismologists. Even after sending letters to the Chinese premier Jiabao Wen detailing his prediction of the approaching Sichuan earthquake, a response was never issued. Ai WeiWei is a political activist who has been highly critical of the stance of the Chinese government on democracy and human rights. He has investigated various government corruption scandals and cover-ups (Cree, 2009). According to (Grube, 2009), Ai WeiWei and other Chinese activists pressed the government to account for the deaths of those who perished during the earthquake. In relation to the student’s death, the Chinese government maintained that the students were killed by natural causes and not faulty constructions. However, majority of evidence points out that the learners perished majorly due to faulty buildings on the province. The state ignored his comments and shut down his blog. Some of the posts that Ai posted in relation to Sichuan were deleted. This led to Ai Weiwei’s house arrest and jail sentence. This shows the state’s failure and ignorance to handle criticisms. Considering the magnitude of the earthquake and media attention that was recovered by China, foreign states and organizations responded almost immediately by providing assistance and condolences. China made a request to the international community on May 4 to respond to the needs of the affected families. For purposes of reconstruction, the Chinese public donated about 10.7 billion Yuan (about US$1.5) billion. The Red Cross flew 558 tents and about 2,500 quilts that were valued at US$113,00 to the Wenchuan County. The Ministry of Civil Affairs of Sichuan provided over 30,000 tents for those people who were left homeless. Enterprises that were owned by the state.Through the Wenchuan 2008 disaster, there is a need to improve building standards and strive for a world that has safer buildings through reductions in corruptions and earthquake-resistant building practices (Tesfamariam & Goda, 2013). Study by Chen (2009, p.1888-196) found out that, in China, the institutionalization of government public relations has had significant results, particularly in the areas of crisis communication, management and building of stakeholder-relationship building. In the context of the Chinese situation, it suggests that ‘institutionalization’ of the state public relations have a tendency of rendering legitimacy to public relations practice and empowering the practitioners by according public relation practice a strategic function towards the attainment of public-institution effectiveness. The study by Chen supports the argument on the importance of PR practice becoming institutionalized. With regard to if China is ready for another earthquake of such magnitude, (Jiaquan, 2013) argues that after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that affected Ya’an City in southwest Sichuan Province, the relief work by the Chinese government and citizens featured numerous commendable elements, for instance, improved material support, prompt rescue work, and orderly participation of the trained volunteers as well as qualified non-governmental organizations. However, the state’s relief efforts are shifting towards reconstruction. The safety of the houses needs to be a priority. After the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake and Lushan Earthquake in 2013, special attention must be given to close supervision of the construction quality and project design. This is because the debris in Lushan Earthquake in 2013 portrayed that the houses in the rural areas are highly vulnerable to earthquake damage. Therefore, the rural residents particularly the low-income rural residents require professional guidance as well as economic input from the central government in order to assist them come up with safe houses. As cited by Miyamoto (2008), nearly all the buildings that actually collapsed in Sichuan province in 2008 and 2013 were built with very minimal seismic resistance. The non-ductile and vulnerable construction in Chin is mostly found in the rural areas. In relation to quake relief work, the safe houses can significantly decrease the death tolls mean much more effectively as compared to the relief efforts that are carried out following a major disaster, such as the Sichuan disaster in 2008 and 2013. By making sure that the general public both in the rural and urban areas have strong and stable living quarters, this would be the evidence of true respect for life. The enormous damage that was witnessed in Sichuan could have been evaded via seismic risk management, especially with establishing and rehabilitating those buildings that were deemed dangerous as well protecting the non-structural components. There need also to be efforts to enhance building’s integrity, which in turn increase the safety and reduce the occupancy interruption (Miyamoto, 2008, p. 34). Even though quick rescue response, the enthusiasm of the public to volunteer and the efficient and orderly coordination of relief efforts are all important, China needs to be prepared for the next quake only if the nation’s houses can stand firm. Reference List BBC News. 2014. Sichuan 2008: A disaster on an immense scale. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22398684 [Accessed: 7 March 2014 Chen, N. (2009). 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