Special report: Strong Earthquake Jolts SW China

    BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has ordered local authorities to investigate the reasons why school buildings collapsed in the earthquake, said Yang Rong, director of the ministry's department of standards and norms, in an online interview on Friday.

    "If quality problems do exist in the school buildings, we will deal with the persons responsible strictly with no toleration and give the public a satisfying answer," said Han Jin, head of the development and plan department of the Ministry of Education in the interview.

Rescuers clean out the debris pressing on a trapped middle school student Yang Hong in quake-striken Beichuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 15, 2008. Trapped for nearly 60 hours, the Junior third grade student Yang Hong of Beichuan Middle School was finally rescued around the zero hour of May 15. His left foot was fractured, while mind remained fully conscious. (Xinhua/Chen Faliang) Photo Gallery>>>

    "Our top priority at present is to save lives, but investigations into construction quality will also be launched," Han replied to online questions.

    The 7.8-magnitude quake that struck southwest China's Sichuan Province on Monday was known to have destroyed 216,000 structures in the province, including 6,898 school buildings, as of Wednesday, according to incomplete calculations, said Han.

    Accurate data is yet to come out, as damage has not been calculated in some of the most badly-hit regions such as Wenchuan County, the epicenter, and Beichuan County, he said.

    The quake hit at 2:28 p.m., when students were in class, leading to relatively severe fatalities among teachers and students, said Han.

    "We want to express our deepest condolences to the teachers and students who lost their precious lives in the quake," he said.

    The government would take the responsibility of rebuilding quake-stricken primary and high schools, while those deep in the countryside would be provided with operating expenses and salaries for teachers, said Han.

    The reason for the collapse of buildings, including schools, would be thoroughly probed and analyzed, as the force of the quake had far exceeded the anticipated degree on which the government established quake-resistance standards for buildings in those areas, said Yang.

Soldiers remove floor slabs during a rescue operation for pupils at the collapsed Jinhua Town Primary School in the quake-hit Jinhua Town of Mianzhu City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 15, 2008. (Xinhua/Liu Zheng)  Photo Gallery>>>

 

    He said China had clear requirements on seismic-resistant designs for buildings in primary and high schools.

    Whether to raise the standard would be considered after rechecking the local quake intensity and investigating the damage, said Yang, adding that the latest scientific research and China's economic and social situation would also be taken into account.

    The quality of school buildings came under the spotlight as reports showed hundreds of students had been buried under crushed schools after the quake.

    Juyuan Middle School, located in an obscure town in Dujiangyan City neighboring Wenchuan, saw about 900 students and teachers buried when its school building collapsed in Monday's quake, and more than 60 were confirmed dead by Tuesday.

    As of 12 p.m. Thursday, 360 students had been rescued from the ruins of the Beichuan Middle School in the Beichuan County, with another 700 more still buried under ruins of the school's main building.

    The issue of collapsed school buildings received most attention from Internet users during Friday's interview.

    There were no national figures of casualties in schools yet.

    The Ministry of Education has told jolted schools to suspend classes according to local needs and, together with the Ministry of Finance, allocated an emergency fund of 50 million yuan (7.14 U.S. dollars) to assist teachers and students.

    "The government has always highly valued the work to improve anti-quake standards for construction projects," said Yang.

    China has upgraded its quake-resistant standards of buildings seven times since the 1950s, said Yang. They included two major revisions after a 7.8-magnitude quake in 1976 and a series of jolts, with the largest one measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, in 1966 in north China.

    China now has 48 special standards for houses, urban infrastructure, railways, roads, power grids, water conservancy works and other projects for the purpose of protecting them from quake damages, according to Yang.

    The worst quake in three decades in China had killed 19,509 people by 4 p.m. Thursday as official data show, while more than 50,000 were feared dead.

    Yang urged people in quake regions to stay away from buildings judged as dangerous or structures whose situation was unclear in case of aftershocks.

    Experts have been dispatched to help appraise the injuries of buildings that were not completely damaged in the jolt, said Yang.