[Marxism] Shoddy school construction cost thousands of children's lives in China

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, May 25, 2008
Grief in the Rubble
Chinese Are Left to Ask Why Schools Fell
By JIM YARDLEY

This story was reported by Jim Yardley, Jake Hooker and Andrew C. 
Revkin, and was written by Mr. Yardley.

DUJIANGYAN, China ? The earthquake's destruction of Xinjian Primary 
School was swift and complete. Hundreds of children were crushed as 
the floors collapsed in a deluge of falling bricks and concrete. Days 
later, as curiosity seekers came with video cameras and as parents 
came to grieve, the four-story school was no more than rubble.

In contrast, none of the nearby buildings were badly damaged. A 
separate kindergarten less than 20 feet away survived with barely a 
crack. An adjacent 10-story hotel stood largely undisturbed. And 
another local primary school, Beijie, catering to children of the 
elite, was in such good condition that local officials were using it 
as a refugee center.

"This is not a natural disaster," said Ren Yongchang, whose 
9-year-old son died inside the destroyed school. His hands were 
covered in plaster dust as he stood beside the rubble, shouting and 
weeping as he grabbed the exposed steel rebar of a broken concrete 
column. "This is not good steel. It doesn't meet standards. They 
stole our children."

There is no official figure on how many children died at Xinjian 
Primary School, nor on how many died at scores of other schools that 
collapsed in the powerful May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province. But 
the number of student deaths seems likely to exceed 10,000, and 
possibly go much higher, a staggering figure that has become a 
simmering controversy in China as grieving parents say their children 
might have lived had the schools been better built.

The Chinese government has enjoyed broad public support for its 
handling of the earthquake, and in Sichuan on Saturday, Secretary 
General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations praised the government's response.

But as parents at different schools begin to speak out, the question 
of whether official negligence, and possibly corruption, contributed 
to the student deaths could turn public opinion. The government has 
launched an investigation, but censors, wary of the public mood, are 
trying to suppress the issue in state-run media and online.

An examination of the collapse of Xinjian Primary School offers a 
disturbing picture of a calamity that might have been avoided. Many 
parents say they were told the school was unsafe. Xinjian was poorly 
built when it opened its doors in 1992, they say, and never got its 
share of government funds for reconstruction because of its low 
ranking in the local education bureaucracy and the low social status 
of its students.

A decade ago, a detached wing of the school was torn down and rebuilt 
because of safety concerns. But the main building remained 
unimproved. Engineers and earthquake experts who examined photographs 
of its wreckage concluded that the structure had many failings and 
one critical flaw: inadequate iron reinforcing rods running up the 
school's vertical columns. One expert described the unstable concrete 
floor panels as "time bombs."

Xinjian also was ill-equipped for a crisis. An ambulance and other 
rescue vehicles that responded after the earthquake could not fit 
through the entrance into the school's courtyard. A bulldozer finally 
dug up beneath the front gate to create enough overhead clearance. 
Parents say they believe several hundred of the school's 660 pupils died.

"It is impossible to describe," said a nurse standing on the rubble 
of the Xinjian site. "There is death everywhere."

Schools are vulnerable to earthquakes, especially in developing 
nations where less attention is paid to building codes. The quake in 
Sichuan Province has already claimed 60,560 lives, and some of the 
flattened schools, especially those buried under landslides, could 
not have stood under any circumstances. The government has not 
provided a public list of those schools, but one early estimate 
concluded that more than 7,000 "schoolrooms" were destroyed.

China has national building codes intended to ensure that major 
structures withstand earthquakes. The government also has made 
upgrading or replacing substandard schools a priority as part of a 
broader effort to improve and expand education. Yet codes are 
spottily enforced. In March 2006, Sichuan Province issued a notice 
that local governments must inspect schools because too many remained 
unsafe, according to one official Web site.

Nothing is more central to the social contract in China than schools. 
Parents sacrifice and "eat bitter" so their children can get 
educations that lead to better lives. In turn, children care for 
their parents in old age. As in Manhattan, affluent Chinese fight to 
gain entrance to top schools from kindergarten onward.

But the families who sent their children to Xinjian are neither 
wealthy nor well connected. They are among the hundreds of millions 
still struggling to benefit from China's economic rise. Many lost 
their jobs when a local cement plant shut down. Some sought work in 
more prosperous areas, leaving their children behind to attend school.

Angry parents at several destroyed schools are beginning to stage 
small demonstrations. On Wednesday, more than 200 Xinjian parents 
demonstrated at the temporary tents used by Dujiangyan's education 
bureau, demanding an investigation and accusing officials of 
corruption and negligence.

One of the parents, Li Wei, said his son was one of 54 students who 
died in a class of 60 fifth graders. He said education officials told 
the demonstrating parents that the bureau had reported safety 
concerns to municipal leaders in the past. But their complaints were ignored.

"We want to bring justice for our children," one father said the day 
before the protest. "We want the local officials to pay the price."

Poor School, Long Neglected

The earthquake struck on May 12 at 2:28 in the afternoon as 20 fifth 
graders were rehearsing a dance on the basketball court in front of 
the school. Fourth graders were outside for gym class. When nearby 
shopkeepers rushed over, the children were standing on the court amid 
a cloud of dust. "They weren't crying," said Chen Chunmei, 35, the 
manager of a shopping strip beside the school. "They were in shock."

The main building was decimated. Parents, neighbors and nearby 
college students arrived to find awful carnage. Ma Qiang, a 
decommissioned soldier living across the street, described a sickening scene.

"We were standing on the bodies of dead children, pulling out other 
children," he recalled days later. He stood in the rubble and held 
his hand level with his head. "The concrete was this high. On the top 
was a boy, and two girls below him, and another boy under them, who 
was dead. It took four hours to dig them out."

For hours, this ad hoc rescue team formed a line and passed along 
bricks or chunks of concrete in an attempt to clear debris. Bodies of 
children were piled on the sidewalk across the street. By late 
evening, paramilitary officers arrived and ordered the parents and 
others to withdraw outside the school gate. Many parents considered 
this a tardy response that was a stinging reminder of Xinjian's low standing.

"A lot of our students came from the mountains," said Deng Huiying, 
the former long-time principal. "Their parents were migrant workers."

Xinjian is in the heart of the city of Dujiangyan. The lack of damage 
to the yellow-tiled kindergarten next door or to the Beijie Primary 
School a five-minute walk away has served as a reminder that 
proximity is not the same as equality.

Beijie is the city's elite primary school, designated as a 
provincial-level "key" school, boasting the best facilities and the 
finest teachers. The kindergarten, meanwhile, was built and 
controlled directly by the city government of Dujiangyan. For years, 
Xinjian was controlled by a smaller, local township government, which 
had far less money and did little to improve the school.

In recent years, China's central government has gradually abolished 
primary school tuition and other fees to ease burdens on farmers and 
migrants. Beijing has also increased its payments to local 
governments for education, but the main burden remains on local 
authorities, and many find themselves strapped for cash or siphon it off.

When Xinjian was built in 1992, many parents worked for the Dongfeng 
Cement Factory. Company bosses donated 40 tons of cement. But that 
was not enough. "Everybody knew they didn't have enough cement," said 
Dai Chuanbin, an older man familiar with the project. "So they used a 
lot of sand."

Parents say the township government cut costs further by hiring 
farmers to do the work instead of trained construction crews. One 
former school official recalled that workers poured the foundation 
during such heavy rains that it collapsed. Another foundation had to be poured.

The school opened in 1993 and would quickly be overrun with students. 
The detached annex was rebuilt in 1998 after inspectors deemed it 
substandard. Ms. Deng, the former principal, recalled that nearby 
construction work in May 2006 caused the flooring in the main school 
building to shake violently. But she said she never had reason to 
believe the building was structurally unsound and never filed any 
written complaints with higher officials.

"If I'd thought the building was unsafe, there's no way I would have 
let the kids stay there," she said. When she saw the collapsed 
building, she fell on the ground, sobbing.

Several parents tell a different story. They say Ms. Deng and other 
school officials told them that the building was aging and unsafe, 
though they could provide no written proof. One father was told that 
Xinjian would soon be closed. Another, Zhu Junsheng, 44, claimed that 
Ms. Deng filed a report with Dujiangyan's education bureau 
complaining about the building.

"The education bureau said there was no money," said Mr. Zhu, sitting 
in front of a blue tent in a refugee camp a block from the school. 
"They didn't care.

"I just want to say: The government didn't do its job."

Nearly two weeks after the earthquake, Mr. Ma, the decommissioned 
soldier, keeps returning to the rubble of Xinjian. He smokes 
cigarette after cigarette and has not changed out of the Che Guevara 
T-shirt and blue jeans he wore on that frantic afternoon.

"That's where government officials send their children to nursery 
school," he said, pointing to the undamaged, yellow-tiled kindergarten.

Mr. Ma saved several children the day of the disaster but cannot 
shake the memory of one girl. Her leg had been pinned beneath a heavy 
concrete slab. Two small cranes had failed to free her. Her body 
temperature was quickly dropping. So Mr. Ma told her father, "She can 
keep her leg or her life."

The father was led away. Mr. Ma used a serrated knife he kept in his 
jeans. He said the job took three cuts across the girl's shin. "She 
will hate me when she is older if she has trouble with love," he said 
with a grim smile.

He does not know the girl's name. "I have dreams every night," he 
said. "She was very pretty. Very strong."

Deadly Engineering Shortcuts

Techniques for fortifying buildings to withstand earthquakes have 
been clearly understood for decades. Use high-quality concrete. Embed 
extra iron rods. Tie them tightly into bundles with strong wire. 
Ensure that components of floors, walls and columns are firmly 
attached. Pay special attention to columns, which are the key to 
having a building sway rather than topple.

Engineers are already trying to assess how much of the destruction on 
May 12 should be attributed to faulty construction during China's 
long and often helter-skelter building boom. The earthquake was so 
powerful, measuring at least 7.9 in magnitude, that a certain amount 
of damage could not be prevented. But engineering experts say Xinjian 
and some other schools in Sichuan were especially vulnerable.

Six structural engineers and earthquake experts asked by The New York 
Times to analyze an online photographic slide show of the wreckage at 
Xinjian concluded, independently, that inadequate steel 
reinforcement, or rebar, was used in the concrete columns supporting 
the school. They also found that the school's precast, hollow 
concrete slab floors and walls did not appear to be securely joined together.

The widespread use of cheap, hollow slab floors is significant 
because numerous buildings with the same flooring collapsed during 
another Chinese earthquake in 1976, which devastated the city of 
Tangshan and killed at least 240,000. (A few buildings with the same 
flooring also fared poorly during the 1994 earthquake in California.)

"If the hollow core slabs are not adequately tied to the lateral 
frames, which seems to be the case in the photos, the structures are 
likely very flexible and would undergo large deformations under 
severe ground motions," said Mary Beth Hueste, an associate professor 
of engineering at Texas A&M University, in an e-mail message.

When such components are not securely joined, they are "extremely 
dangerous, like time bombs," said Xiao Yan, an expert in 
earthquake-resistant designs.

The most pronounced failing at Xinjian seemed to be inadequate steel 
reinforcement of the concrete columns supporting the school, experts 
said. There were too few rebar reinforcing rods and too little of the 
thin binding wire that holds the rebar together. And, critically, the 
steel bindings attaching the concrete flooring slabs were inadequate.

Xiaonian Duan, an engineer specializing in earthquake resilience for 
Arup, a multinational design consulting company whose head office is 
in London, said that concrete flooring panels fall apart during an 
earthquake if not strongly attached, "like we see Legos collapse."

The Chinese government has known that many schools, especially in 
rural areas, are unsafe. Since 2001, the State Council, China's 
cabinet, has budgeted roughly $1.5 billion for a nationwide program 
to repair dangerous schools in rural areas. In 2006, Sichuan 
Province's government issued an urgent notice calling for localities 
to stop using substandard primary and middle schools.

"Unsafe buildings are the major hidden danger of school safety at 
present, and in recent years, accidents with death tolls and injuries 
were caused by collapsed schools," the provincial notice warned.

Dr. Xiao toured the disaster zone after this month's earthquake and 
found that many of the problems at Xinjian were common elsewhere. He 
said one reason for the widespread damage was that buildings in the 
region were not required to meet China's most stringent standards for 
seismic protection. He also noted that China rates overall building 
design codes from 1 to 4. Buildings rated 1 are considered 
"important" and must meet stricter design requirements. But the 
system rates schools only as a 3, which means no additional design 
protections are needed.

In the aftermath of the quake, a handful of bricklayers and builders 
have visited Xinjian Primary School out of professional curiosity. A 
builder from nearby Meishan City recognized the faulty columns and 
flooring problems. Then he picked up a chunk of concrete from the 
rubble and rubbed it in his hands.

"The ratio of sand and concrete isn't right," he said. "It fell down 
because of cheap materials."

In Search of Justice

The parents of Xinjian Primary School posted an online petition last 
Wednesday. They demanded justice for their children. Local police 
officials have promised an investigation, but the parents are not 
satisfied. They intend to protest again.

School represents hope in China. The parents do not express it 
exactly like that, but they saw education as their children's only 
chance. The cement factory that employed many parents ? and provided 
cement for the school ? went bankrupt in 2002. They now collect small 
welfare payments and hold down odd jobs to support their families.

Liao Minhui had aspirations for his daughter. He knew that Xinjian 
was considered inferior and that a better school might help her find 
a better life. So he tried to wheedle her into Beijie, the elite 
school. He said he offered thousands of yuan to gain her admission, 
to no avail. She died in the Xinjian rubble.

"I tried very hard," Mr. Liao said. "I tried to get help from every 
well-connected friend I have. Everything there is the best. The 
teachers are the best. The facilities are the best."

Jiang Xuezheng, 41, is a small, wiry man whose simple manner betrays 
his country upbringing in a village about 200 miles away. He has sold 
fruit in Dujiangyan for nearly a decade to support his family back in 
the village. But to do this, he lived apart from his son for eight years.

So last year, Mr. Jiang also paid to try to win his child admission 
to a city school. He chose Xinjian. To him, a peasant, a city school 
like Xinjian represented a step up. He paid a $1,400 fee to make the 
switch. His 9-year-old boy was admitted in September.

"My parents are still in the countryside, but I wanted my son to live 
with me," said Mr. Jiang, bowing his head and weeping. "I waited for 
eight years. Finally, I was together with my son.

"And then tragedy happens."

Jim Yardley and Jake Hooker reported from Dujiangyan, and Andrew C. 
Revkin from New York. Zhang Jing and Huang Yuanxi contributed research.


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