$58,000 and One Man Saved 2,323 Students and Teachers

While the horrific toll from the Chinese quake continues to rise as the various reports reconcile the missing with the dead, one town can give special thanks to one man who had the wherewithal to do what the authorities would not.

The man, Ye Zhiping, the principal of Sangzao Middle School in Sichuan Province, scrapped together $58,000 to make needed repairs and improvement to the middle school so that it could survive quakes.

Nervous about the shoddiness of the main school building, Mr. Ye scraped together $58,000 to renovate it in the 1990s. He had workers widen concrete pillars and insert iron rods into them. He demanded stronger balcony railings. He demolished a bathroom whose pipes had been weakened by water.

His school in Peace County probably withstood the 8.0-magnitude earthquake because he pushed the county government to upgrade it. Just 20 miles north, the collapse of Beichuan Middle School buried 1,000 students and teachers.

Mr. Ye’s tale sheds light on the lax building codes in this mountainous corner of Sichuan Province and what might have been done to address well-known shortcomings. In his case, a personal commitment and a relatively petty amount of cash sufficed to avert tragedy.

This stands out from the horror stories repeated throughout Sichuan. Far too many schools collapsed, killing all within. An entire generation of children were wiped out in an instant, and yet for a minor sum, one man was able to keep his own school from being the scene of a similar such disaster.

The Chinese government knows that they are going to face accusations of cutting corners and ignoring safety; they're already cracking down on protests against the government over the school collapses.

That Ye's school survived, and with modest investments in structural enhancements, tells the tale. He cajoled school authorities to make the money available and he had workers install additional rebar and concrete supports.