Archive for the ‘Infrastructure’ Category

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20090122: Xinhuanet: Hong Kong considers more funding for rebuilding in post-quake Sichuan

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/22/content_10704281.htm

HONG KONG, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) — Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said here Thursday it is seeking another injection of 4 billion HK dollars (about 516 million U.S. dollars) into the trust fund to support the reconstruction in the earthquake stricken areas in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam said the HKSAR government will support the region’s second-stage reconstruction work in Sichuan with the 4 billion HK dollars, if approved, and the 2 billion HK dollars commitments earlier.

The second-stage relief efforts taken by HKSAR will cover 103 projects in different areas, including 80 education, medical and rehabilitation, and social welfare projects, and 23 relating to the Wolong Natural Reserve reconstruction.

Secretary for Development Carrie Lam said the major earthquake inflicted devastating damage to the Wolong area, the habitat of the giant pandas that needs urgent rebuilding works as soon as possible.

“Local conservation and construction experts will participate in monitoring the projects, while the Ocean Park of Hong Kong has been appointed by Hong Kong and Sichuan as a technical consultant,” she said.

The Wolong reconstruction will cost about 1.607 billion HK dollars (about 207 million U.S. dollars), involving rebuilding the conservation area’s ecological environment and scientific research facilities, as well as infrastructure and public utilities to serve the local population.

The HKSAR government promised to proceed and monitor its resource capability and the reconstruction support work does not exceed 10 billion HK dollars (1.29 billion U.S. dollars) in financial terms.

Government officials will brief the Legislative Council Development Panel on the work progress on Feb. 3, before submitting a fund application to the LegCo Finance Committee by the end of next month.

The trust fund has so far approved 12 applications in the first phase for schemes in education, medical services, physical and psychological rehabilitation, and training.

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Posted in Construction and infrastructure, Facilities reconstruction, Government, Infrastructure, Investment, Official news source | No Comments »

20090120: Xinhuanet: ADB provides China 1st grant to improve disaster management

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Asian Development Bank provides China 1st grant to improve disaster management

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/20/content_10689150.htm

MANILA, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday said it is providing the bank’s first grant on enhancing disaster management to China, to solve the aftermath of the 8.0-magnititude earthquake which killed more than 80,000 people in southwestern Sichuan province last May.

The funds, totaling 650,000 U.S. dollars, will be used to conduct a full review of the current system and to help China develop a risk management strategy that is coordinated, effective, and more inclusive of the civil society and the private sector, ADB said in a statement.

It is the first time that ADB is providing technical assistance to support the development of public or private partnerships in disaster management, it said, adding that the need for an all-round disaster risk management system in China “has never been greater.”

“In the past there has been no mechanism for those (outside of government) who want to contribute and this TA will help address that concern. It will ultimately reduce the burden on the government,” said Manmohan Parkash, Principal Transport Specialist for ADB’s East Asia Department.

The grant complements an earlier technical assistance grant of 1 million U.S. dollars, approved in May 2008, to provide a preliminary assessment of the earthquake damage and reconstruction needs for Sichuan, the bank said.

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SQR Planning to Rebuild Community Kindergarten in Guangji

Friday, January 16th, 2009

Sichuan Quake Relief volunteers delivered winter supplies to children at a school in the village of Guangji, two hours northwest of Chengdu on January 9th, 2009. The 132 children, aged two to six years, currently attend a day school in a temporary structure with no heat or running water. In spite of their conditions, the children greeted volunteers with smiles and a song.

Schoolboy at Guangji Kindergarten

Schoolboy at Guangji Kindergarten.

Their school, Guangji Di Kang Le Kindergarten, was closed due to structural damage after the earthquake. The school has been moved to a temporary structure in a neighbouring field until part of the school can be reinforced, and an older section demolished. Principal Kang Yuling hopes that they will be able to return to the school in September 2009 if donations are made available. The school has been given a 5,000rmb subsidy by the government to help with the rebuilding, but it will cost at least 50,000rmb to simply strengthen the structure, plus any decoration costs.

The temporary building is cold

The temporary building is cold.

As the temporary classrooms are extremely cold, SQR volunteers provided students with 15,806rmb’s worth of winter supplies, including; gloves, scarves, coats, long underwear and electric kettles (receipts available). The funding for this project was provided by the British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai (www.sha.britcham.org). The British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai donated a total of 37,000rmb to be used for this school.

School principal (l) Kang Yuling

School principal (l) Kang Yuling

The Guangji Di Kang Le Kindergarten is the only pre-school institution and Kindergarten serving five villages. Almost all the parents of the children that attend this school are migrant workers who are forced to work in the coastal cities as there is very little employment in the quake area. This school is a non-profit community project that has been around for more than 20 years. Principal Kang taught many of the parents of her current students when the school opened up first. In 2006, to help them move to better premises she donated part of her family’s farmland, and a section of her family home to start the school. In addition, the other teachers raised enough money to build a new section, purchase playground equipment, and supplies.

The building remained standing, but damage is severe.

The building remained standing, but damage is severe.

The school they built then with their own money, though badly damaged by the quake, was one of the few buildings in the area that stayed standing. All of the children and staff got out of the building safely when the earthquake struck.

Tuition for the kids, including meals, is 120rmb per month. If families cannot afford the fees the school reduces or waives them. The local government has confirmed there will be no more financial support for this community kindergarten. SQR is currently assessing the situation in detail with a view to helping to rebuild the school, and perhaps extend the community facilities, and develop a long-term partnership with the Guangji community.  This project will be implemented in conjunction with the Chengdu American Chamber of Commerce, the British Chamber of Commerce SouthWest China, and the European Chamber of Commerce in Chengdu, and the Chengdu International Women’s Club.

Photos by Kirsten Allen

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Posted in Childcare, Civil society, Construction and infrastructure, Donation, Education, Facilities reconstruction, Home rebuilding, Infrastructure, Labour and migration, Living conditions, Local government, SQR, SQR Activities, SQR Donation Request, Winter | No Comments »

20083112: Photos from the Wenchuan area showing earthquake damage

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Kieran Fitzgerald was in the Wenchuan area on 31st December 2008.  He took these photos.  The damage which show the power of the earthquake, with massive landslides and broken bridges.

This is one reason why the last SQR delivery trip took 5 days.

Wenchuan area, 31st December 2008

Landslide

Wenchuan area, 31st December 2008

Broken bridge
Wenchuan area, 31st December 2008

Landslide

Wenchuan area, 31st December 2008

Huge chunk of rocky mountain that fell off during the quake.

For more photos, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sichuanquakerelief/

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Posted in Environment, Infrastructure, Transport, Winter | No Comments »

Financial Times: China to fund just 20% of quake rebuild

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Report on post-quake rebuilding from the UK’s Financial Times:

The Chinese government will fund just a fifth of the estimated RMB 3,000 billion cost of reconstruction and development in earthquake-affected Sichuan, leaving businesses and state-owned banks to pay for the rest, provincial officials said on Friday. Even as economic officials issue warnings that China’s economy is cooling much faster than expected as a result of the global crisis, Sichuan officials said they were optimistic that state-owned companies and the private sector would invest in the disaster zone.

“The government’s investment will encourage all kinds of investment from society to help us rebuild Sichuan after the quake,” said Wei Hong, executive vice-governor of Sichuan Province, at a press conference. “We will seek loans from domestic banks, financing from capital markets and donations from the public to make up the rest of the needed investment.”

The government appears to be ordering state-owned banks to shoulder much of the burden of a giant fiscal stimulus package announced last week at a time when they face slowing profits and rising bad loans. China’s benchmark stock index has fallen by nearly 70 per cent from the peak it reached last October and regulators have effectively suspended approvals for new listings.

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Gov.cn: Sichuan to get 3 trillion yuan by 2010

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

From the Chinese Government’s Official web portal:

Authorities in quake-hit Sichuan Province in southwest China plan to invest at least 3 trillion yuan (441 billion U.S. dollars) for reconstruction by 2010, executive vice provincial governor Wei Hong said on Friday.

About 1.67 trillion yuan is needed to rebuild the 139 counties hit by the 8.0-magnitude quake in May, with investment in other development projects to reach almost 700 billion yuan each year between 2008-2010, Wei told a press conference in Beijing.

Under those estimates, spending could approach 3.7 trillion yuan.

Wei said that “the central and provincial governments can only provide 800 billion yuan, or about a fifth of the total investment needed, so we will raise funds from banks, the capital market and donations” to get the rest.

He said reconstruction investment will be 790 billion yuan this year and 1.2 trillion yuan next year.

As of the end of October, the central government had allocated almost 34.5 billion yuan for post-disaster reconstruction and five major banks had agreed to lend 64.73 billion yuan, Wei told reporters.

In addition, Sichuan had reached 1,152 reconstruction agreements with other provinces as well as the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, with a planned investment totaling27 billion yuan, he added.

The 8.0-magnitude quake centered in Sichuan’s Wenchuan County left more than 69,000 people dead, 374,000 injured, 18,000 missing and millions homeless.

More than 31,000 aftershocks have been reported since, with the strongest measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale.

In terms of the intensity and scope of destruction, the May 12 quake is believed to have surpassed the 7.8-magnitude quake in 1976 in Tangshan, northern Hebei Province, which claimed more than 240,000 lives.

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Posted in Construction and infrastructure, Enterprise, Facilities reconstruction, Home rebuilding, Infrastructure, Investment | No Comments »

Beijing municipality to invest 7 billion yuan in Sichuan

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Beijing is expected to invest at least 7 billion yuan (1.02 billion U.S. dollars) in the quake-hit Sichuan Province in the coming two years, according to Mayor Guo Jinlong on October 8, Xinhua reported.

Beijing municipality has been tasked with Shifang. The money will be used on construction, intellectual support and industry cooperation. The focus this year is 39 programs, including construction of residential buildings, schools and hospitals, Guo said. In total, 86 energy-saving houses provided by Beijing had been delivered to Shifang Municipal Welfare Centre. In addition, the city had provided 11,696 jobs to Shifang City residents and received 1,579 students from one of the worst-hit areas in the May 12 quake. The conference proposed 685 post-quake programs with a total investment of 601.7 billion yuan. These included industries of hi-tech, resources, equipment manufacturing, agriculture, service trade, culture, tourism and infrastructure. Beijing and Sichuan companies signed 54 agreements here on Wednesday involving a total investment of 66.6 billion yuan.

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Ecological toilet forum

Friday, December 19th, 2008

In Guanghan Dishui village, which has a population of 108 people, 20 environmentally friendly toilets (UDT, the toilet in which urine and faeces are collected separately) were installed. Over thirty more are now under construction and estimated to be finished by the end of the year.

Villagers here are comparatively well-off and willing to try new ideas in contrast with those in other disaster areas (for there were frequent tourists before the quake and fruit-selling once flourished during that time). Therefore it was quite easy to persuade people to try using this kind of toilet.

According to the village head, it takes only 2 or 3 days and no more than 4 people to built a UDT. And the price ranges from 600-1600 RMB depending on the specific requirement of every family, such as decoration and material.

Though the toilet is widely praised, a few people still have some reservations. “It will take a year or 2 to see if this project is successful,” said Yang Xiulei, a journalist of Sichuan Rural Area. “Obviously these are quite newly built and barely used. And in my opinion, the process of disposal of excrement seems a little bit inconvenient, so it could happen that villagers stop using it months afterwards.”

Also, during the visit and observation, Huang Zhenping, a staff of China Environmental Protection Foundation, expressed his concern about the fact that “there could be many NGOs rushed in to this without thorough consideration. And if they failed in such project, the worst we may be facing is that no one would do it anymore.”

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Report of Meeting with Ye Cao Culture

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

As one of the most influential local NGOs, Ye Cao focuses on environmental protection.  After the May 12th earthquake, they began to do some projects combining environmental protection and quake relief.

SQR visited them last Thursday to get more information about what Chinese NGOs or Chengdu local NGOs are doing and to search for some opportunities to cooperate with them.

What have they done in the past few months?

In the past few months, they were doing a project called ecological W.C. for public use in villages in Mianzhu, Jiu Zhai Gou and Pengzhou.

What are they doing now?

Project one: Ecological washroom for family use

Recently they have begun another related project, still about toilets but for family use. They are doing this project for 108 families in Guang Han.

They will hold a forum about ecological washrooms on 18th September 2008.  Some specialists,  organizations, NGOs and the media will attend this forum. They hope a representative of SQR can attend the forum.

Project two: Organic crop

The other project they are working on is organic crops project. They plan to use a piece of land for a demonstration to local people.  When the idea attracts any local farmer, they will teach the methods to plant organic crops.

Now they have finished project design and location collection.

Because full preparation work for a project usually take an NGO three months.  So now they are prioritising the ecological washroom.  When they finish this, they will get down to work on the second project.

Ye Cao culture is a Chengdu native NGO. It has good network with Chinese NGOs or some Chinese branches of foreign NGO. They go to affected areas regularly, and develop good relationships with local government. They are also familiar with some other NGOs’ regular project sites. Their members are all Sichuanese natives, so they perhaps have a better understanding with people and situations in the affected area. They have almost no contact with foreign NGOs. They are lacking in resources in this field.

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