The Di Kang Le Kindergarten in Guangji has held its first student-and-parents sports day since it was rebuilt and reopened in September. SQR was there to enjoy the fun and games.
This is the fifth time the school has held a sports day; Principal Kang said this year’s was the most successful to date, with over 130 families taking full advantage of their much-enlarged playground area.
Today marks the second anniversary of one of China’s worst disasters in living memory, and is a particular milestone for those with family members still listed as missing. Some 17,921 are still classified as such, but from today, relatives may apply to have their missing loved ones officially recognised as deceased — a process that will take a further year to complete.
A huge amount has been accomplished in the two years since the tragedy struck: whole towns have been rebuilt, and people have shown immense resilience and strength of character as they have strived to put their lives back together. We have been inspired and humbled by the survivors we’ve met, who have retained hope and courage in the face of tremendous physical, emotional and economic turmoil.
For others, as SQR’s recent research interviews have shown, the recovery process is far from over. There is every chance the third anniversary will be upon us before we know it, with a substantial minority still struggling to fully recover from the repercussions of 12 May 2008.
SQR remains as committed to its objectives as ever, and we will continue to develop community recovery projects to support the poorest of the poor still badly affected by repercussions of the earthquake; encourage grassroot organisations that are playing a role in the rebuilding of stricken communities; and act as a platform for the development of a vibrant civil society.
After completing the reinforcements and laying the new playground and car park up at SQR’s Guangji Kindergarten and Community Centre project, the next phase was immediately begun. A brand new building will not only replace one that was damaged beyond repair, but expand and improve on it too. The building will contain new classrooms, a dormitory for that all-important nap time, a kitchen capable of feeding 140 hungry mouths each and every day, and an environmental toilet.
Meanwhile, flu season is here. Principal Kang and her staff keep an eye on their students to make sure no one is neither unduly suffering nor spreading the illness to their classmates. Temperatures are taken as the students arrive at school every morning — any sign of fever and the parents or grandparents are advised to take them back home or to the local clinic.
Until now the staff had been using traditional thermometers, which is not ideal when handling such a large number of people. On one of our regular visits to the school, SQR brought along a brand new non-contact thermometer, which can accurately read the temperature from a few centimetres away, in under a second. The new gadget not only brings a hygenic benefit, but the added speed means the staff can give the grandparents a quick temperature-check too.
Work continues apace up at SQR’s Guangji Kindergarten project, with the completion of a new, protected pathway from the gate to the first school-building. A small wall prevents the children from running onto the new bike- and car-park on the way up the path. As they enter the building, a new sign politely reminds the children and staff to speak Mandarin, as opposed to the local dialect that they speak at home, to ensure that by the time they are graduated to primary school, they have the same language levels as their urban peers.
In front the recently-reinforced existing building, the newly-laid playground is already in use, with flowerbeds all along the back wall either side of the daily assembly point. A temporary wall restricts access to the site at the back of the grounds, where work has begun on the foundations of the new classrooms, dormitories and kitchen.
SQR is immensely pleased to report that a major stage of our Guangji Kindergarten & Community Centre project has been completed: the existing building has been reinforced with steel, certified as safe and the children were back having lessons in a permanent structure on the first day of the Spring semester yesterday.
Jinhua Town (金花镇) — comprising a central residential area and seven surrounding villages — is not far from the location of SQR’s Guangji Kindergarten & Community Centre project, lying in the foothills of the Longmen mountains. The area was severely affected by the earthquake, with 98% of the buildings destroyed, and of just over 6,300 residents, 367 were killed, at least 30 of whom were children buried when the town primary school collapsed.
Due to the devastation of the town, residents had been living in temporary accommodation in Guangji town several miles away until the area had been cleared and reconstruction started at the beginning of 2009. The entire new layout of central Jinhua was planned and designed by the government. Each household is responsible for paying for the completion of its own home — either building it themselves or hiring labourers, many of whom have travelled from Wujin in Jiangsu Province, the city twinned with Jinhua to assist them with the recovery and rebuilding effort. In order to either do or oversee the building work, people are living in tents or temporary homes made of wooden planks.
Standing in stark contrast to the half-finished homes surrounding them are the large new clinic and primary school, both completed before September this year. The school features large classrooms and science labs, a sports area with running track and basketball court, and landscaped courtyard. Both buildings were paid for by Wujin as part of the twinning programme, and can more than accommodate the current 102 students and 20 members of staff. The impressive status of the school facilities belies that hardships that face the community.
Employment and sustainable living are of concern to the townspeople. While local shops have begun to open for business again, many of their customers are the migrant workers from Wujin, who will be leaving once the work dries up. Some former restaurant owners in Jinhua have moved their businesses to Mianzhu, taking their contribution to Jinhua’s economy and employment rate with them.
As is the case in many other places, bank or personal loans are required to make up the significant difference between the government grants and the final cost. Locals estimated that, even with loans and/or savings, two-thirds of the townspeople would not be able to afford to pay for their homes to be completed for several years to come.
While SQR was delivering the school supplies to the children of Yanyan Village (岩堰村), we were able to get an overview of how to reconstruction of housing is going, eighteen months after the quake.
Yanyan is just one of over 270 villages in the county of Qingchuan. The county has a population of 250,000, around 220,000 of whom are in rural areas, and almost half lost their homes in the quake. The steep mountainsides on which three-quarters of the villages are located has made reconstruction particularly slow in this region.
Before the quake struck, the few hundred households that comprised the village were well spaced-out in the surroundings, with each family having an area of land around their house in which to keep animals or store food and possessions. Homes were often close to the land on which the villagers farmed.
Post-quake, housing in Yanyan has been centralised and rebuilt in two terraced rows either side of the very muddy through-road. Timber has been used for the two-storey frames, with un-reinforced bricks and mortar filling the wallspace. Neither level has insulation, due to the added expense this would bring to each family. The terraced construction has drastically reduced the personal outdoor storage space for each house, and means some villagers must travel greater distances to their farmland. However, it can be argued that there are greater security and social-community benefits to this type of layout.
As is generally the case in rural communities such as this, families are rebuilding their own houses, but the construction of the framework was completed by a professional contractor from Mianyang, paid for collectively by the villagers.
Government grants for home-rebuilding are dependent on the number of people in the house; in this village, grants range from 16,000—22,000 RMB. The grants are given out in installments according to the progress of construction, with the final 5,000 RMB only being delivered upon completion. The actual cost of rebuilding one family house here is in the region of 40,000 RMB, leaving the villagers no choice but to seek bank loans of amounts in excess of 20,000 RMB. Although from the exterior, the lower levels of some of the houses appear to be near completion, a look inside reveals cold, unplastered concrete walls and floors, starkly lit by bare bulbs hanging from ad hoc wiring.
Winter is almost upon them, temperatures are dropping considerably, but the houses are not yet completed and the through-road is still nothing but a muddy track. The temporary village school we visited has now closed due to having neither any form of heating nor any qualified teachers. The pre-school, Grade One and Grade Two children we provided with textbooks and other supplies have no choice but to study at home, their parents unable to afford to send them to the central school in Qima Town on top of their home-rebuilding costs.
Qingchuan County, northern Sichuan.
After the earthquake destroyed many of the local village schools in Qingchuan County, it was decided that rather than rebuild each small school, a large central school would be built in the nearest town. Unfortunately, for many of these villages the nearest town could be more than twenty kilometres away, along roads that have frequently been blocked by landslides, or made inaccessible by local rivers bursting their banks during the rainy season.
Some of the villages that have lost their local schools in Qingchuan County, along with the nearest towns.
Villages such as Liping, Yanyan, Minzhu and Shuimo have all been told that their school-age children must now attend the central school in Qima Town. For some parents, this means sending their child to board at the school — a cost of 120 RMB a month; for many, it means renting a place in Lijiaguo, close to Qima, costing up to 600 RMB a month including food and utilities. That’s around 6000 RMB per academic year in a region where annual earnings are approximately half that amount. This kind of expense cannot be borne for long, and already more than half of the students from these villages are staying at home instead of going to the central school, receiving no schooling whatsoever.
The situation is the same all over the county: students from Heping Village — some two hundred of them — must not only travel by road, but spend forty minutes on the river in order to reach Yingpan Central Primary School; Jinjiaping is three or four hours walk away from Maoba Central Primary School; Sandui is five kilometres along mountain roads from Shazhou. The list goes on.
The villagers overwhelmingly want their own local schools to be rebuilt; impressively, more than thirteen villages in Qingchuan County have won an agreement from the local education bureau that, provided they find the funding to rebuild the school themselves, then teachers will be supplied and the school will be permitted run.
The people of Liping have led the way in raising money, from within their own community and from companies further afield, and succeeded in building a 120-square-metre school — more than enough to educate all of the local children and with room to grow. But they were aghast to be told, when they applied for the permit to begin operations, the education bureau had apparently specified that village schools must be larger than 200 square metres in order to qualify. No-one had heard of this restriction while the school was being planned.
Further confusion ensued when the representatives from Yanyan — a village that had had its own school for almost fifty years before the quake — started work on their own plans for a school, necessarily bigger than 200 square metres, only to be told that it must be at least 300 square metres if it was to be allowed to hire teachers, despite being barely six kilometres (as the crow flies) from Liping. People started to wonder if the central school in Qima was having a hand in these policy-switches in order to keep as many students (and with them, more funding) for themselves.
But the people in Liping could not bear the thought of their time, money, and hard work going to waste — not to mention choosing between struggling to afford to send their child to the central school, or having no education at all. They pleaded with the education bureau to overlook the size-restriction and — thanks in large part to a relative of the community being an employee at the bureau — they were at last granted the permit. Classes will begin again at Liping Village Elementary School from next semester.
The other villages we have mentioned are not so lucky to have friends in high places, and are stuck either wondering if they should risk going ahead to rebuild a school that may not be permitted to run, or struggling to locate the funds to rebuild their own schools at all. SQR is monitoring the situation to determine if anything can be done for these other villages, collectively or individually.
The Confederation of British Industry’s Chief Representative in Beijing is raising money for a key SQR project, the Guangji Kindergarten & Community Centre.
Many Beijing residents will have travelled along some part of the Jingcheng (Beijing to Chengde) highway enroute perhaps to the Great Wall at either Mutianyu or Jinshanling.
Guy Dru Drury, the CBI's Chief Representative in Beijing, prepares to take on the gruelling 500km 2009 JCCR
However, have you ever considered continuing along its entirety, past Beijing’s principal reservoir at Miyun and on into the mountains that lead, after 200 KM, to the imperial resort of Chengde? Well, if you do then you’ll be visiting the summer hideaway of successive Chinese Emperors who created their very own “summer palace” nestled in the mountains that overlook the Mongolian steppes. It is home to China’s largest palace garden and, incidentally, the world’s shortest river, the Rehe. At a mere 9 miles in length it feeds the bucolic Rehe springs and is largely contained within the vast expanse of the royal palace grounds. In August, and tentatively scheduled to coincide with the one year anniversary of the Olympic opening ceremony, the CBI’s Chief Representative, Guy Dru Drury, will be embarking on his own journey from Beijing to Chengde following the route of the Jingcheng highway. Travelling by a mixture of road and mountain bike he aims to cover the mountainous 500km roundtrip route in 20 hours over the weekend of the 8 August.
It is all in the name of a good cause, namely raising money for the reconstruction of the Guangji Kindergarten destroyed in last year’s devastating earthquake.
Downloadable information
If you would like to support Guy’s efforts then please give generously to SQR directly. By the way, if you do want to visit Chengde you can of course travel there in air‐conditioned comfort either by car or rail if a 20 hour cycle ride is not your preferred means of transport!
Guy Dru Drury (guydd@cbi.org.uk and gdrudrury@gmail.com)
Beijing 01.07.09
June 28 – July 3 SQR SAME Summer Camp Session 1 at GuangJi Township near Mianzhu
Last week 7 enthusiastic SQR volunteers trekked up to GuangJi to set up the first SAME Summer Camp at GuangJi Township near Mianzhu (2hrs from Chengdu). The GuangJi Kindergarten and Preschool was chosen as our first location because SQR already had an existing relationship with the school principal, Kang Laoshi (‘laoshi’ = ‘teacher’). SQR is actively coordinating the demolition and rebuilding of one of the buildings damaged in last year’s quake.
The 7 volunteers consisted of international students (an American and Brazilian) as well as local Sichuan university students and recent grads. We met on Sunday afternoon at the Bookworm for a short meeting to discuss the upcoming week’s plans then set off by van to GuangJi, arriving by early evening to meet with Kang Laoshi and discuss the week’s schedule and lesson plans.
Our accommodation were more than adequate in that Kang laoshi allowed us to sleep in the temporary classrooms next door to the permanent buildings. It was quite comfortable since we were provided beds and linen and had access to lighting and electricity. The worst inconvenience was the occassional mosquito bite.
The first morning and day began well with the local teachers starting the kids off with morning exercises and dances to loosen up kids for an active day of learning. It was wonderful to see, and I took loads of pictures.
Throughout the day the SQR volunteers conducted their teaching modules in Sports, Art, Music and English; working alongside the local teachers and adjusting our lesson plans to tailor to the school children’s various levels. In that sense, the volunteers are challenged to adapt quickly and be flexible to the needs of the children.
During the second night at camp a 5.6 quake struck nearby Mianzhu shaking us out of bed, but luckily no major damage was inflicted. Indeed it was a stark reminder of why we were there in the first place. Less than 12 hours later an aftershock of 5.0 occurred during napping time for the kids. The local teachers and SQR volunteers quickly scrambled to evacuate the children from the permanent building and arrange for classes to be conducted in the temporary classrooms the rest of the week. Seeing some of the children distraught and crying from the quake gave us another reminder of why we were there.
The remaining week went on smoothly. The classes and activities were fun and interesting for the kids and the experience gained by the volunteers was challenging yet every bit rewarding and life enriching.
I am lucky to have been apart of such a wonderful experience and will remember and cherish it forever. During our last dinner with Kang laoshi, I thanked her for everything she had done for us and told her that “Sichuan will forever be in our hearts.”
Leeman Now
SQR SAME Summer Camp Project Mgr
The Chinese University of HK, MBA 2011
The first SAME camp of 2009 was a success, or "A range of high marks for the ballroom dancers."
Mianyang, Sichuan Province dedicated agency to protect the old county town of Beichuan
China news agency, Mian Yang, June 11 (Reporter Xiao Qing)
Reporters from Mian Yang CPC Municipal Committee were informed that in order to speed up the treatment of the barrier lake in the Tangjiahe Mountain and the protection of the old county, Mian Yang City will set up an agency to co-ordinate the work of specialized agencies. At present, these two tasks are beginning.
The protection of Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County of the Old County and Barrier Lake in the Tangjiahe Mountain have aroused widespread concern and development. The post-disaster reconstruction plan is about the protection of barrier lake in the Tangjiahe Mountain in Beichuan county includes the construction of the museum, heritage and rescue, protection, water conservancy facilities reconstruction (focused on barrier lake management), there are two investment plans totalling nearly 1.2 billion Yuan.
According to a report, because management of the barrier lake in the Tangjiahe mountain and Beichuan old county’s protection regionally focus and covers a wide range, Mian Yang City plans that CHEN YUAN CHUN, who is the Municipal Standing Committee and the CPC secretary of Beichuan county, should be responsible for a specialized agency which will integrate land, water supply, environmental protection, traffic and other departments.
The first of professional nursing facility completed a construction project in Sichuan earthquake-stricken district (Xinhua, writer: Zhou Runjian)
Journalists have got news from Hetong Old Age Welfare Association in Tianjin city that the Chinese Red Cross Foundation helped Hetong Old Age Welfare Association with indiscriminate subsidies to design and build the foundation of the Hetong nursing facility of the Red Cross in Ziyan, Mianzhu.
This is the first of professional nursing facilities of reconstruction project in earthquake-stricken area, which aimed at helping the old and childless, the orphaned and disabled.
The Hetong nursing facility, located at 602 Yufei Road Jiannan town, Mianzhu city, which is one of the reconstruction projects. The organization covers an area of 900 square metres. The facility has 10 units of 2 to 4 rooms with 40 beds.
2009-06-04 10:17 Journalist: Yang Jin
The largest housing project for low-income urban residents has started in Guozhu, Weizhou, in Wenchuan. Guangzhou project is helping to build the project. This is the largest scale reconstruction and most significant investment of its type in the area.
The purpose of the project is recovering and improving living standards. A total investment of about 300 million yuan is planned, and the total area is about 850 square km, with 6 kinds of house types. The project is expected to finish in November 2009, when the houses could be used.
China.org.cn by Ma Yujia, May 26, 2009
A report from a joint investigation team – Analysis of building damage in 5.12 quake – suggests that the proportion of school buildings damaged beyond repair in the Sichuan earthquake was four times higher than government buildings, and goes on to examine some of the reasons for the collapse of these buildings.
According to China Economic Weekly, the report was written by a joint investigation team from Tsinghua University, Southwest Jiaotong University and Beijing Jiaotong University. It reveals that 13 percent of 54 government buildings investigated were considered damaged “beyond repair”; while the proportion among 44 investigated school buildings was 57 percent, 4 times higher than government buildings.
School buildings suffered the most serious damage
After the 5.12 devastating earthquake, experts from Tsinghua University were sent to Sichuan to commence an investigation into building damage, coordinating with other qualified academics from Southwest Jiaotong University and Beijing Jiaotong University.
The experts divided buildings under investigation into 7 different categories: school buildings, government buildings, industrial buildings, residential buildings, hospital buildings, and others. According to the statistics from the report, among 384 checked buildings, school buildings and industrial buildings suffered the most damage in the earthquake.
The report says many school buildings in the quake zone were designed with a masonry structure and contained large rooms, big windows and external corridors, which rendered these buildings susceptible to earthquake damage. Similarly, industrial buildings in some villages were also based on a masonry structure, with poor earthquake-resistance. However, most government buildings were framed structures, capable of resisting an earthquake.
Following the quake, concerns were voiced both at home and abroad over construction quality in the quake zone. Responding to these suspicions, Vice Governor of Sichuan Province Wei Hong said that in such a devastating earthquake the collapse of school buildings was inevitable.
Professor Lu Xinzheng from Tsinghua University thinks that China’s weak social and economic conditions have resulted in the low earthquake-resistance level on the intensity scale in some areas. He feels it should be raised by 1 to 2 grades.
Various factors combined to damage school buildings
“For many years, schools in China were designed with the same resistance level as standard residential buildings, while in Japan, the level for schools was 1 grade higher on the quake-intensity scale,” said Feng Peng, a member of the investigation team, in an interview with China economic weekly. “We should increase this level and make school buildings the safest places, capable of serving as safe havens during critical events.”
In July 2008, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine released a revised Code for Seismic Design of Buildings and Standard for Classification of Seismic Protection of Building Constructions, which require that new schools must be designed with a higher resistance-level than standard residential buildings, one grade higher on the quake intensity scale.
According to Feng, there were “quality problems” with some school buildings; however, other factors too, such as poor design, might have combined to result in damage to thousands of school buildings during the catastrophic earthquake. For example, the roof-span of a classroom is usually wide, it is therefore more vulnerable to strong quakes. It was also the case that older schools, and those not built in conformity with construction norms, generally suffered greater damage.
An expert from a domestic building research institute, who was sent to quake-stricken areas to conduct research, said: “Most buildings designed in line with seismic code and according to higher construction standards did not collapse, even in high-level intensity areas. During his investigation, “quality issues” were indeed identified, such as poor design and use of substandard building materials.
Local economic factors restrict ability to increase resistance level
According to Feng Peng, there are only a few cities in China where residential buildings have been designed with a resistance specification of grade 8 on the intensity scale. The higher the level of resistance, the better a building is capable of resisting an earthquake.
However, local economic development is a major barrier to increasing the resistance level. Analysis indicates that an increase of one grade in resistance level can raise a building’s construction costs by 5 to 10 percent.
“For example, many regions in Shanxi Province lie in areas subject to a threat level of grade 9, but nobody is willing to invest in building to this standard due to the enormous cost,” said Feng. “At present, buildings in China are generally completed to the national minimum standard. Our government should encourage people to build themselves safer houses with a higher-resistance level.”
On 14th May 2009, SQR volunteers visited villages in the Wenchuan area.
Villagers setting up tents for the migrant workers they hired
The students in town were relocated to Luzhou and Chengdu, their new school will be put to use in September.
Caopo Central Primary School under construction
Matou Village and Longtan Village can be said to be better off than Lianghe. Using old Chinese wooden house structures, most houses in the village remained standing through the earthquake. There is a big mushroom-shaped plastic-covered greenhouse in Matou, and two white marble quarries in Longtan. As told by a villager of Longtan, if the road remains accessible, they won’t have to worry about buying rice or other things regarding to their basic needs. But again, they were also told not to grow too much.
On the way to Longtan Village; the houses downhill belong to Lianghe Village
Yang Kai yin, a 60-year-old resident of Longtan Village
She has four children: two sons work in Xichang, one son and a daughter stay at home, farming. Her house sustained itself in the earthquake, as did many houses in the village. After reinforcement, the house is now habitable. Though she owns a fairly large field and grow plenty of vegetables, it still concerns her that it is possible that she gets nothing back from it. “They say the village (government) is going to repair that road, and then I can’t get these vegetables and my goats out and sell.” Of the rice that government supplied her, she said, “we don’t have much left. What we have can sustain us through May to Mid-June. Then we’ll have to use a micro-loan to buy rice in town.”
Ni Qiulan, who lives in the same village, is in a similar situation
To repair the house, Ni’s family spent 20-30 thousand RMB, which is almost all the money they got from the government and micro-credit. Ni’s 3 grandchildren now go to school in Luzhou and Chengdu. Although the government takes care of the tuition fees and basic living expenses, “they still need some allowance, you know, when they go out with friends. Things in Chengdu are really expensive,” she said. This family hasn’t bought any rice since the earthquake. The rice provided by the government, “is not enough if you use rice for every meal. We cook corn and rice together so that it lasts longer.” At the time of writing they have about 25kg rice left, and Ni thinks it can support them until mid-June.
One problem for Longtan villagers is traffic. The hill motorway connecting Matou and Longtan is often damaged by rain and landslides, especially in the rainy season. We were told that this road has been repaired twice since it first opened after the earthquake, and the residents have to walk 2 hours to get to Lianghe to buy groceries if they can’t hitchhike.
Liu Sixiu (pink backpack) chatting with Lianghe villagers on her 2-hour walk back to Longtan
Collapsed Middle School at the memorial site of Yingxiu
The collapsed Middle School in Yingxiu, the township at the epicentre of the quake, has been turned into a 5.12 memorial. Nearly every building in Ying Xiu was destroyed and only 3,800 of the 16,000 residents survived, according to official figures.
It has taken a whole year to excavate the enormous piles of rubble that covered the valley where the town is located. The survivors, who are all now in prefabricated housing, hope that work will soon start on their new homes. Local government officials predict that Ying Xiu will become a big tourist attraction for Chinese who want to remember the May 12 disaster and visit the key sites.
The Remains of Yingxiu Middle School
There are two main ways to donate to SQR:
Read about our current projects to see how your donation will be used.
Support SQR and spread the word by wearing one of our T-shirts, or carrying one of our linen shopping bags.
