The Sichuan Earthquake In 2008 Environmental Sciences Essay

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.

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

China – Qingzhou, Sichuan

Earthquake (ground shaking)

351000

26/12/2008

China -Yunnan province

Earthquake (ground shaking)

95019

06/10/2008

China -Near Ningzhong, Yangi

Earthquake (ground shaking)

754

30/08/2008

China -Miyi, Lihui , Panzhihua

Earthquake (ground shaking)

1000589

492

21/08/2008

China -Yingjiang (Yunnan province)

Earthquake (ground shaking)

160

05/08/2008

China -Sichuan province

Earthquake (ground shaking)

13529

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

10/01/2008

05/02/2008

China -Zhejiang, Sichuan, Anhui

Extreme winter conditions

129

77000000

21100

07/07/2008

China -Hubei, Yunnan provinces

General Flood

3000000

102

10/10/2008

16/10/2008

China -Hainan Island

General Flood

50000

31/10/2008

04/11/2008

China -Yunnan, Guangxi provinces

General Flood

411000

07/08/2008

11/08/2008

China -Jinghong (Yunan province)

General Flood

810000

02/05/2008

05/05/2008

China -Dangyang, Shayang

General Flood

780000

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

538166

08/07/2008

China -Long en village

Landslide

08/09/2008

China -Taoshi, near Linfen

Landslide

277

13/06/2008

China -Luliang (Shanxi province

Landslide

14/03/2008

China -Near Huocheng County

Landslide

03/06/2008

China -Zhoukou (Henan province)

Local storm

100

17/04/2008

19/04/2008

China -Xinjiang

Local storm

733

28/09/2008

China -Ningle, Fuzhou, Putian

Tropical cyclone

24/09/2008

25/09/2008

China -Near Maoming, Yanjiang

Tropical cyclone

824

22/08/2008

23/08/2008

China -Canton, Shenzhen

Tropical cyclone

900000

08/08/2008

11/08/2008

China -Leizhou Peninsula

Tropical cyclone

42000

28/07/2008

08/08/2008

China -Yuexi, Jinzhai

Tropical cyclone

93006

24/06/2008

27/06/2008

China -Sichuan, Guandong

Tropical cyclone

340000

175

19/04/2008

China -Shenzhen, Hainan

Tropical cyclone

274000

25/09/2008

Hong Kong (China)

Tropical cyclone

22/09/2008

Hong Kong (China)

Tropical cyclone

112

0.38

05/08/2008

Hong Kong (China)

Tropical cyclone

23/07/2008

24/07/2008

Japan -Hachinohe

Earthquake (ground shaking)

470

110

14/06/2008

Japan -Iwate, Miyazaki, Miyagi

Earthquake (ground shaking

448

167

28/07/2008

29/07/2008

Japan -Kobe , Kanazawa

General Flood

50003

04/05/2008

Korea -Boryeong

Storm surge/coastal Flood

01/05/2008

10/09/2008

Mongolia -Ulaanbaatar, Sukhbaatar

Viral Infectious Diseases

3151

16/09/2008

Taiwan – Nantou

Tropical cyclone

28/09/2008

Taiwan – Ilan county

Tropical cyclone

23/09/2008

Taiwan (China)

Tropical cyclone

18/07/2008

19/07/2008

Taiwan -Stratit, Yilan

Tropical cyclone

27/07/2008

Taiwan – Nantou county

Tropical cyclone

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

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.

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 created a particular culture of risk which “plays” with sensitivity and vulnerability of the audiences they address to and they always want to attract, even to “captivate”.

Moreover, some environmental phenomena also cause important damage, but, unlike Wenchuan earthquake, are not fast events. These processes act slowly and cause destructions in long periods, such as soil erosion or aridification. We would like to focus less on the technical aspects of disasters, even if they must not be forgotten, than on the way society reacts to these issues and takes them into account.

Wenchuan earthquake, are not fast events. These processes act slowly and cause destructions in long periods, such as soil erosion.

We would like to focus less on the technical aspects of disasters, even if they must not be forgotten, than on the way society reacts to these issues and takes them into account.

Such interrogations could be treated in a geopolitical study of the treatment of risk and natural disaster by the Chinese government and society.

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