Experts: Poor construction in China quake area

updated 7:04 p.m. ET June 5, 2008

BEICHUAN, China - Shoddy construction and poor planning contributed to the toll from China's devastating earthquake, engineers studying the disaster for the government said Thursday, as a lake still swelling behind a wall of debris threatened communities downstream.

Premier Wen Jiabao flew by helicopter to oversee efforts to drain Tangjiashan lake, which was formed when a landslide set off by the May 12 quake blocked a river.

"Now is a critical moment for the Tangjiashan quake lake, and the most important thing is to ensure there are no casualties," the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted Wen as saying.

More than 10,000 people in low-lying areas about 30 miles downstream were evacuated by Thursday afternoon, adding to a total of more than 250,000 who had been forced to flee to higher ground, Xinhua said.

Engineers and building experts sent to the disaster zone to study damage raised questions about poor construction, bad urban planning and lack of enforcement of building codes. The problems were especially glaring at some schools and in rural areas and small towns, they said.

Growing public anger over the deaths of children in collapsed schools fueled accusations about corruption in school construction, putting the government on the defensive.

"My feeling is that if the construction work in general had been better, then the loss could have been minimized," said Chen Baosheng of Tongji University, who studies disaster prevention in buildings.

Gathering recommendations
Chen and dozens of other experts sent by Beijing for 10 days late last month are compiling a series of recommendations for the government. Though he and two others reached by telephone declined to discuss their conclusions, they described disturbing examples of bad construction.

"I remember driving past Nanba Primary School," said Li Xianzhong of the China Academy of Building Research in Beijing. "I felt it extremely strange that the school building was shaken to the ground, whereas the buildings next to it were still standing."

In Pingwu County, Li said, buildings were constructed near a river bend on unstable beds of sinking soil and shifting sands. In Jiangyou city, a 15-story building was built without support columns driven into the ground for stability, he said.

The middle school in Juyuan — a national focal point of public anger after nearly 300 students died — was poorly sited and poorly built, Chen said.

Builders used prefabricated concrete slabs for the school, and the main classroom building lay parallel to the fault line, causing it to shake violently during the quake. That building collapsed while an adjacent building perpendicular to the fault line did not, Chen said.

Authorities have promised to investigate the school collapses in Sichuan province, but there has not been any word on the findings. Officials were analyzing samples of the debris but said the work would take time.

In front of the rubble that was Beichuan Middle School on Thursday, an empty school desk served as a memorial, piled with offerings of chocolate and stuffed toys. Volunteers at the site said more than 1,000 students died. Inside a small sign-in book, parents have scrawled plaintive wishes: "Help us find some answers."

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