Posts Tagged ‘Pengzhou’

3.2 earthquake at the junction of Dujiangyan and Pengzhou

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

2nd June 2009  source: www.newssc.org

According to the survey and evaluation of seismographic station, there was a 3.2 earthquake at the junction of Dujiangyan and Pengzhou (north latitude: 31.2 east longitude: 103.7) at the Beijing time 14:01:36.3

AP: China to open earthquake areas to tourists: report

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

China to open earthquake areas to tourists: report (AP)

CHINESE authorities said today they would open areas devastated by last year’s Sichuan earthquake to tourists as the region struggles to recover from the natural disaster, state media reported.

Nearly 87,000 people were killed or went missing in the May 12 magnitude 8.0 earthquake that left millions homeless and unemployed in China’s mountainous southwest region.

“There is a huge tourism market in the ruins one year after the quake,” Xinhua news agency quoted Wu Mian, deputy director of Sichuan’s tourism bureau, as saying.

“We cannot block the tourists out. We also hope the tourists watch their behaviour and not hurt the feelings of quake survivors.”

Officials hope that increased tourism will help spur rebuilding efforts in the area, it said.

20090217: Tian Shengqiao temporary housing issues

Friday, February 27th, 2009

地震灾区新房很漂亮 就是有点不“方便”

四川在线  (2009-02-17 06:48:24)  来源:四川在线-华西都市报

In a recent official survey conducted in Pengzhou City, it is odd, and in slightly awkward for the researchers to find that 160 villagers in Tian Shengqiao village had moved back to their temporary housings instead of the new villas which were built with financial aid from government, not long after their cheerful moving-in ceremony on Jan 16th.

It is rather difficult for people who haven’t been to the village in person to understand why these villagers are actually complaining about a new house that worth 90 thousand cost them only 20 thousand per family.

But actually, 3 things which are rather necessary and important to the residents were neglected when it was first designed – toilet, kitchen and yard.

Jingqiao Village is near a well-known temple, Bailu Shang Shu Yuan, which is over hundred years old. The local government has been planning to rebuild a temple and also redevelop the tourist business in this region; hence the rebuilt community was unified – planned and designed by Chengdu City government to make sure it consistent with the temple’s architectural style.
However the unified-planned walls are actually not the best choice for the environment where moisture and frost could gradually damage the buildings. More practically, without the traditional yards, where do the residents air their crops and keep their livestock?
It has been a challenging race for Tang Ming, a resident of Tian Shengqiao Village, to rush to the toilet on the hill side behind his new house at 6’o clock, first thing, every morning. “It’s a really long queue.” he said.
And just like many of his neighbours, Tang Ming and his wife have to walk 500m hill road to a “cookout” at the “community camp site” of Tian Shengqiao village, which is actually a couple of abandoned houses.
No kitchen, no toilet, and no place for livestock or poultry…therefore some villagers moved out before Chinese New Year, only 10 days after moving in. “It (the new house) looks good though.” said Tang, “it’s just really inconvenient to take a 500m walk to go to the toilet.”
“We had only 10 days to plan and design 400 reconstruction sites. It’s too little time for too much work.” Wang Songtao, the chief planner of Chengdu City Planning Bureau, explained to us.
Fortunately, after this survey, Chengdu City government has already started countercheck and feedback collection in general. New plan for 446 reconstruction sites is estimated to be finished before March, and sequentially improvement could be seen soon afterwards.
[SQR approx. translation into English]

彭州市通济镇天生桥村11组,由于统一规划的新房还没来得及修建厨房和厕所,或是缺乏传统的晾晒场地,160位村民在参加完“春节入住仪式”后,又悄悄搬了出来,继续在临时棚户中凑合……

当地政府准备重建这座小有名气的教堂,一座百年老教堂——白鹿上书院,借地震之机开发旅游,金桥村3组作为景区的一部分也将重建为风格统一的欧式洋房。

统一规划的红砖勾缝外墙,不仅很难和构造柱处理协调,也不适宜山里的气候,容易被霜霖和潮湿侵蚀腐化。更实际的是,大家都没了阳台和院子。今后晾晒粮食和衣服怎么办呢?

每天早上6点起床,57岁的唐明发第一件事就是以百米冲刺的速度,跑到自家新房后的那个山坡上抢厕所——“去晚了,人得排队到啥时候?” 没有厨房、厕所,没有晾晒粮食的坝子,没有鸡圈猪舍……于是有些村民还没等到大年三十又干脆搬回了山上的简陋棚户。“新房挺好看,但上厕所来回要跑一公里,太麻烦了!”

7点多,天空已经露出了鱼肚白。唐明发叫上妻子一起做饭。两人翻过崎岖的山坡来到离新家一里外的天生桥村“野炊营地”。借着几间废弃的砖房,村民们夹道砌起了密密麻麻的锅灶,露天摆放着许多水缸、碗盘和瓜菜。“入住”新房一个月了,野炊的日子还要过多久?唐明发有些迷茫。

“当初对灾区农村住房进行重建规划时,只有10天时间,对于全市400多个重建点位来说,时间太短、量太大,任务确实很艰巨。”成都市规划局总规划师王松涛坦言。

成都市委书记李春城日前实地调研后,天生桥村等成都灾区446个住房重建点位已全部开始全面复查,征求农民意见,预计3月前就将完成新的方案,完善重建新村。

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.

SQR update

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Fron Lucy at SQR central:

Small update on what’s been going on lately.

The weekend before last SQR sent out six foreign volunteer teachers (from: USA, Indonesia, Germany and Singapore). I brought four of
them up to two schools in Qingchuan on Sunday where we like the time before were warmly welcomed and invited to stay the night (what we did since the drive there takes about 5 hours). Those four volunteers are back to Chengdu by now and I’m soon getting some of their pictures to upload on our wp. All of them had a very positive experience and the principles and teachers were very satisfied as well, not to forget the kids who went completely crazy for their “laowai laoshi”.

The other two SQR volunteers went to Pengzhou (they were accompanied by Annie, a HK volunteer who has helped us out before) and are still teaching in the schools. Their calls sounded as positive as the ones from the Qingchuan bunch.

John Cafasso, a hobby photographer, contacted me some time ago. His photos are being exhibited in Portsmouth at the moment and are up for sale (all the profits will go to SQR). He is also sending Mark and me a CD with all his photos and we are free to use them for any fundraising project we have in mind (which would be the postcards).

On Thursday last week SQR held another NGO meeting (topic: health care, hygiene, etc.). The attending NGOs weren’t as numerous but the feedback was very positive and we plan to hold another meeting with the topic of reconstruction soon.

Jenny from The Library Project contacted me today. They have funding for two small libraries for two of our schools (one in Tumen and one in
Qingchuan). They will send all the books asap and I will bring them to the schools as soon as they arrive here.

Update from the Chengdu’ers

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

A major part of the work of Sichuan-Quake-Relief is to act as an information hub and a connection point between donors and projects, which will involve reporting on the work of the many groups and projects in the region. Here is a short report from Simon, from one such group, the Chengdu’ers:

Last weekend we travelled with Zhu Hai volunteers up to the Mianyang/Jiangyou and Chenjiaba areas of Sichuan.

We had received aid parcels from the GAC school in Wuhan, Hubei province, and the people in this area of Sichuan had not been covered by the army yet. Again, basic food and some tents had arrived from government sources but mosquito repellents, sanitary towels, skin creams for the terrible weather (the last week has been hot and dusty for a few days, followed by a day or two of heavy rain) were in short supply.

Some of the houses look fine, once inside however it is clear that most of them will be demolished eventually. The government officers have been round and daubed characters on the houses: red for demolition, yellow for repair, blue or nothing for safe. The settlements are quite isolated; rice and vegetables are the area’s main produce. Behind one village the whole front of the escarpment had collapsed.

Most of Sichuan’s mountains are densely covered with trees and foliage, the earthquake has literally sheared some of them in half and anywhere you see brown or grey on the mountainsides are collapses or slides due to the quake. Our base was on the outskirts of Jiangyou City. The campsite was somewhat noisy — lorries carrying flat-pack temporary housing, which is becoming such a feature of the landscape.

We’re just a small group, no official name as such but have networked with Guangzhou and local Sichuanese volunteers. Liang Ya, Tom, Michael, Li Qing Wei, Tang Qing Yun and Xiao Gao make up the Chengdu’ers. This week we’re back to Pengzhou county to take supplies to a village hospital that’s had a small upsurge in patients so I’m just heading off to the medical wholesale place now.