Setting Up For Next Major Disaster in China

While the death toll in China continues climbing above 55,000, people are trying to sell scrap rebar recovered from buildings that were destroyed in the Sichuan earthquake for reuse saying it's strong enough

Many of those buildings that were destroyed in the quake lacked sufficient rebar and/or used substandard rebar. If they reuse the rebar recovered from those buildings, they'll just be setting up for the next major quake. For China, it's not a question of if, but when.

The Chinese authorities have been pushing a huge building boom, but haven't exactly paid much attention to construction techniques to ensure that they're meeting all the structural and engineering requirements until now.

At the back of a junkyard crowded with dirty pipes in Mianyang, China, two men were at work this past week straightening tangled mountains of rusty reinforcing bars and rebundling them for sale.

"It's strong enough," said Zeng Shuncai, one of the men. He said he is expecting sales to boom now that so many families will need to build new homes in this city near the epicenter of last week's giant earthquake in southwestern China. Engineers say such secondhand steel isn't as strong as new rebar, but it sells for about $100 less per metric ton.

As China begins the monumental task of rebuilding housing for an estimated five million left homeless by the quake, it is also undertaking a major re-evaluation of construction practices that could change the way people live well beyond the areas that were leveled by the 7.9-magnitude quake.

Many say substandard construction exacerbated the quake's toll. Nearly 56,000 people have been confirmed dead, and about 25,000 remain missing. The severity of the temblor, which was China's worst in three decades and exceeded the level foreseen by government building codes, magnified the damage.

But architects and engineers say many of the simple four- and five-story structures that crumbled should have been able to withstand such a strong quake -- if they had been built properly. They say many buildings don't appear to have had enough steel reinforcing rods, or rebar, in their concrete to withstand the quake's rapid, lateral shaking.

These structures "should not have collapsed," said Silas Chiow, director of China operations for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a U.S. architecture firm that is building some of tallest skyscrapers in China.

"The supervision of the quality of construction and engineering should be improved," says Li Zhengliang, an engineer who is vice director of Chongqing University's school of architecture and civil engineering.

Mr. Li, who traveled to the quake zone to inspect buildings, says that in many cases, he and his colleagues discovered "inferior" materials were used in the construction of structures that collapsed. Many older buildings hadn't been renovated to meet upgraded seismic regulations, he said. Chen Zhong, a senior official in charge of quality standards at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, says "seismic-fortification standards for buildings need to be revised," given advances in technology and China's ability to afford stronger regulation.

Chinese authorities have said that they've been able to restore power and water service to much of the affected area.

Meanwhile, the NYT reports that Chinese authorities arrested a woman who posted a video online complaining about the quake coverage - that there was too much and why people should pay so much attention to the problem given just how few died compared to the number of people who live in China (more than 1 billion). No word on the law she broke.