Chinese Authorities Admit Death Toll Could Climb Above 50,000

It's absolutely tragic, but there isn't anything the central government can do about it now except to hasten the relief and recovery efforts. They're still reliant on winding roads that are barely passable to get aid into the region.

The Chinese government admits that the death toll from the quake could top 50,000. That's still low-balling the figures based on the number of people in the affected region, and the totality of damage in some areas hardest hit, but gives you some sense of what the Chinese are facing in Sichuan province.

MSNBC also questions whether the building boom led to shortcuts and paying short shrift to safety in new construction.

Other infrastructure old and new suffered as well. Nearly 400 dams, most of them small, were damaged across Sichuan, the government's economic planning agency said on its Web site. One of the two bigger ones, Zipingpu, had cracks four inches across its top; and though the government said the dam was safe, its reservoir was drained.

China is jolted by thousands of earthquakes every year, at least several of them major ones that cause significant damage and loss of life. Since the 1976 quake in Tangshan near Beijing killed at least 240,000 people, the communist government has tried to improve building standards.

"China has been taking earthquake safety very seriously in the past 10 to 20 years," said Susan Tubbesing, head of the California-based Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. "From what I understand, the codes China has adopted in the past 20 years have been good, solid, seismic codes."

Enforcement varies
Enforcement, however, varies. The building boom that has underpinned much of the stunning growth has also been an invitation for corruption, with officials and developers colluding. Profit margins are thinner on smaller projects in less prosperous places, encouraging developers to cut corners.

Older structures might not meet current codes, and there are newer construction that might not have been built to those codes because builders took shortcuts. Either way, the Chinese government will have to deal with the reality that so much infrastructure was devastated and reassess their building codes and rapid pace of construction.

There was serious concern about Zipingpu Dam, located above one of the cities hardest hit by the quake, Dujiangyan. 2,000 soldiers were forced to respond to make immediate repairs and to lower the reservoir levels after 4-inch cracks appeared in the top of the dam. This will clearly have to force a reassessment of building codes and makes one wonder about the safety of dams and other structures throughout the rest of China, much of which is seismically active.

Damage to the two-year-old Zipingpu Dam threatened downstream communities still digging out from the quake. Some 2,000 soldiers were sent to the dam, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Four-inch cracks scarred the top of the dam, and landslides had poured down the surrounding hills, the business news magazine Caijing said on its Web site in a report from the scene.

Although the government pronounced the dam safe late Tuesday after an inspection, Caijing said its waters were being emptied to relieve pressure. The Ministry of Water Resources issued a notice to check reservoirs nationwide, while the economic planning agency said nearly 400 dams, most of them small, were damaged by the quake.

Hundreds of rivers snake through the mountainous Tibetan plateau before descending into the fertile Sichuan basin where they provide critical irrigation.

The activist group International Rivers Network was involved in a campaign in 2001 and 2002 to protest funding for the Zipingpu Dam because of its proximity to a fault line, said Aviva Imhoff, the group’s campaigns director.

Imhoff said the group obtained transcripts of a 2000 internal government meeting in which seismologists warned officials of the dangers of constructing the dam and the potential for it to be damaged in an earthquake, Imhoff said.

Video has also surfaced showing the moments that the quake struck. There are still moments of joy, as a survivor is pulled from the rubble, even 60+ hours after the quake, but those are few and far between. All too often, the scene is one of recovering the remains of those who lived, worked, played, and went to school in the affected region.

UPDATE:
YNet is reporting that the Chinese government is appealing for emergency equipment to assist in the relief and recovery efforts. That's a far cry from past natural disasters in the country, and suggests that the Chinese government is starting to realize its very real shortcomings.