China+2008

=__**China** (Sichuan) **2008** __=

The outbreak of 2008 Sichuan earthquake brought loss of life and property.

**Section 1 - Background to the Earthquake**
 The Sichuan 2008 Earthquake took place in the Sichuan Province located in China. Sichuan Province has 5% of the total territory of China, while its population of 87,250,000 is one of the biggest in China, being approximately 6.5% of the total chinese population. The epicenter of the earthquake was situated in Wenchuan County, the absolute location was 31° 1′ 15.6″ N, 103° 22′ 1.2″ E.



The two plates that collided to create this earthquake were the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. As seen in the diagram below, the border at the right of the Indo-Australian plate is colliding with the Eurasian plate, approximately at the location of Sichuan province.



The Sichuan earthquake took place on land in the rural areas. Much of the population in the province works on agriculture due to its rich land resources. Because of the many rich resources available and utilizable plants, this has led to an exploitation of the resources to try and satisfy the growing population. The Sichuan province also has an important part of China's forest in it. The houses in this area were just built, and not designed, hence why they collapsed during the earthquake.

** Section 2 - What happened? **
At the boundary of these two plates, there is a collision plate margin formed. Moreover, there is the Longmenshan fault, situated along the Longmenshan mountains that is responsible for the uplift of mountains and is believed to have caused the 2008 Sichuan earthquake too, according to the China Earthquake Administration. This earthquake was caused by the hill-back fracture and mid-fracture along the fault, which resulted with the Longmenshan thrust pushing southeastward. The Longmenshan fault and its internal fractures cause earthquakes of low frequence, but with the potential of creating much stronger ones.

The strength of the Sichuan 2008 earthquake in terms of land movement and energy released was estimated to be around 7.9 - 8 on the Richter scale. In terms of damage on the people, the earthquake was estimated to be around 10 on the mercalli scale according to the China Herald. The earthquake lasted about two minutes and released 30 times the energy of the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 in Japan, which killed over 6,000 people.

Damage in the earthquake was intensified by its long duration (2 minutes to 3 minutes) and large ground accelerations. This led to high, but spatially uneven, patterns of structural failure. Many areas of western Sichuan have experienced rapid recent development, in part motivated by the growing tourist industry. Poor construction practices appear to have played a role in many building failures. Now that it is clear that the faults in the region can sustain strong ground shaking, reconstruction efforts will have to take the potential for similar future events into account. Besides ground shakes and fault rupture, many secondary hazards associated with earthquake took place such as landslides, rock falls, and liquefaction which was reported later.

According to Chinese official counts, major aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 4.0 to 6.1, were recorded within 72 hours of the main quake.

Landslides that completely block the valley floor form natural dams as river flows pond behind them. Because landslide dams are composed of loose material, they are easily eroded by flowing water and are likely to fail catastrophically, particularly once water begins to overtop the dam and flow across its surface. 28 out of 30 dams were at risk of immediate failure.

** Section 3 - What was the impact of the earthquake? **
According to Chinese state officials, the quake caused 69,181 known deaths including 68,636 in Sichuan province. 18,498 people are listed as missing, and 374,171 injured, but these figures may further increase as more reports come in. This estimate includes 158 earthquake relief workers who were killed in landslides as they tried to repair roads. Many Beijing office towers were evacuated, including the building housing the media offices for the organizers of the 2008 Summer Olympics.In Beichuan county, 80% of the buildings collapsed according to Xinhua News. In the city of Shifang, the collapse of two chemical plants led to leakage of some 80 tons of liquid ammonia, with hundreds of people reported buried. Officials were unable to contact the Wolong National Nature Reserve, home to around 280 ** GIANT PANDAS **.
 * = Time ||= May, 12, 2008, 14:28~14:31 ||
 * = Magnitude ||= 7.9~8.0 ||
 * = Dead ||= 69,181 ||
 * = Injured ||= 374,171 ||
 * = Missing ||= 18,498 ||

Sichuan province alone, 10,000 injured and 80% of the buildings were destroyed. In terms of school casualties, thousands of school children died due to shoddy construction. In Mianyang City, seven schools collapsed, burying at least 1,700 people. At least 7,000 school buildings in Sichuan Province collapsed. Another 700 students were buried in a school in Hanwang. At least 600 students and staff died at Juyuan Elementary School. Up to 1,300 children and teachers died at Beichuan Middle School.

All of the highways into Wenchuan, and others throughout Sichuan province, were damaged, resulting in delayed arrival of the rescue troops. The total damage costs were estimated to be around $76 billion, however, even though a large sum of money will have to be invested on repairing damage caused by the earthquake, the impacts on China's economy as a whole were said not to be that large. Reasons for this is that the earthquake's epicenter was in a very rural area. Very little of China's industrial or commercial base was affected by the earthquake and aftershocks. However, the agricultural sector in Sichuan sustained damage estimated at $6 billion due to the earthquake. According to the [|China Venture News], the process of rebuilding the destroyed houses will actually stimulate some areas of the economy. In fact, the only significant economic impact from the earthquake is said to be that the construction boom will increase inflation.

The areas in China hit by earthquakes tend to develop slower economically due to their lack of natural export markets that the cities by the east coast have. A large amount of capital is used up after earthquakes on rescue efforts, cleaning up and rebuilding as seen earlier. This means the resources are diverted to the affected region causing disruptions to other areas of the country. In terms of the local scale for the Sichuan province, there may be inflationary pressure created depending on the damage the farms suffered. Sichuan's GDP only accounted for about 4.2% of the national total in 2007, while other affected areas represented 0.7% only altogether, so the overall economic impacts on China as a whole were not that terrible.



The greatest concerns were ecosystem and habitat loss, water contamination, disposal of debris, and damage on arable farming lands. The immediate damage was landslides, since the earthquake generated land deformation of more than 3 metres.  The earthquake was centred in Minshan-Hengduan mountains where is ecologically sensitive and rich in species especially the icon of China, GIANT PANDAS.


 * [[image:http://static.guim.co.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2008/jul/03/1/GD7914167@A-giant-panda,-evacua-2381.jpg width="559" height="379" align="center" caption="panda taking a bath"]] ||
 * panda taking a bath ||

=
Many houses, buildings, and constructions were destroyed. According to information given by the State Council Information Office, about 5,932,500 houses were seriously damaged and 5,461,900 houses collapsed mostly because of the poor condition of housing structures. As the Chinese government provided victims with temporary housing. Rubble is thought to be dumped into their neighbourhoods, some croplands, and valleys. Residents are worrying about epidemic caused by all the detritus. A total of 350, 000 tonnes of wheat was lost in the Mianyang Prefecture, as the grain storages collapsed. Thousands of other greenhouses have also causing loss of vegetable crops, as well as major seed growing areas producing up to 20% of China's rice were hit and 20 000 hectares were affected. This was caused by the cracks and craters in the rice fields, which interrupted the irrigation and dried up the fields. 70% of the rice fields were affected, causing problems for the next harvest. There were also 3 million pigs that died and 70% of livestock too, leading to a estimated overall livestock loss of about $2 billion.=====

 Due to the relatively small share that Sichuan contributes to the Chinese economy, the overall economic impact of the earthquake at the national level is expected to be modest at most. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Sichuan’s GDP only accounted for 4.2 percent of the national total in 2007, and the shares of major quake-hit regions including Dujiangyan, Pengzhou, Deyang, Mianyang, Guanyuan and Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture were even smaller, between them only representing 0.7 percent of China’s GDP. Industrial production of the province and major quake-hit regions was 3.8 percent and 0.7 percent of the national total, respectively (New Express, May 22). Moreover, the population and agricultural production of the severely affected areas in a national context was 1.0 percent and 1.3 percent. When the Kobe earthquake hit Japan in 1995, the population, GDP, agriculture and industrial production share of severely affected areas in a national context was much higher, reaching 4.4 percent, 4.1 percent, 2.1 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively. While the Kobe earthquake cost Japan $200 billion—or 2.5 percent of its GDP at the time—and is still the costliest natural disaster to befall any one country, Japan’s economic activities actually held up better than expected, and indeed rebounded quickly (China Views, May 21). Therefore, though the damage to Sichuan’s agriculture—especially its pork production—and post-quake demand for basic materials and energy commodities will make it difficult for Beijing to retard destabilizing flares of high inflation (China Brief, April 28), the overall economic impact of the Sichuan earthquake can be tempered by China’s decision makers. This seems especially apt given China’s long history of dealing with severe natural disasters such as the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake, the 1998 Yangtze River Floods and the 2008 Snow Storm Disaster.

Section 4 - Evaluation
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The social impacts were mainly related to the deaths, injured and missing people. These were caused by the collapsing of buildings, killing almost 70,000 people due to the poor design and age of the buildings themselves. The total damage cost the government about 76$ billion according to experts, as well as supplies had to be sent and reconstruction starting to take place. Inflation may rise in Sichuan although that is the most significant economic impact at the moment. The collapsing of buildings created large amounts of debris which contribute to polluting the area and creating an epidemic. The habitats of animals such as the giant pandas have been destroyed, as well as many livestock being killed and rice paddy fields being dried out.

The impacts of the earthquake were worse than we would have expected in terms of economical and social, as there were 70,000 deaths, which in terms of deaths makes it one of the 15 most destructive earthquakes recorded. Moreover, the amount of rice paddy fields that were destroyed and livestock that died accumulate to a large sum of money lost. The long-term effects of the earthquake will also be dreadful for China, as it will affect the national energy development. As one of the world's most energy-consuming countries, China had intended to develop their nuclear power from 6.5GW in 2005 to 40GW in 2020. Sichuan was one of the locations that was going to receive a 4GW nuclear plant, but due to the province being in an active earthquake zone that was cancelled. More medium and long-term effects would include rehabilitation of dams and water reservoirs, animal shelters and training of farmers in cash crop production and being conscious of how to react during a disaster. The Bureau of Agriculture in each county will have to support the reparation of infrastructure, office equipment, warehouses and technical extension services, as well as seed inspection and testing facilities.