Well, no one knows, just yet. There are no official answers, but from what i’ve been able to cull from the internet, there were several factors. Some people have said that the tubes used to prop the tunnel up were of inferior quality. Others have said the collapsed site was near a heavily trafficked road, upon which there had appeared cracks and little pits weeks earlier. There was also, mentioned in some other article whose links i’ve lost now, the issue of how the route was changed, and how the project was hastened by a whole year, which perhaps lead people cutting corners or making less than sound decisions. If, as mentioned earlier on this blog and all over the internet, suspicious problems were discovered weeks before the collapse, then there is some huge problem with the way that problems are treated, reported, and dealt with. “Bureaucracy with Chinese characteristics was responsible for the deaths of these people” is how one commenter put it.

Now, every aspect of this subway is going to be examined. I have read some brief snippets on the web about bidding process for this contract…in any case, i hope that even if there is no courageous muckracking by any one individual or outlet that at least, collectively, people can arrive at something approximating the truth.

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Should they have jumped, why did the jump? Were they hanging off the rails of the balconies until they had no strength and just let go? Why didn’t any brave men climb up the stairs to rescue them?

Four women died after jumping off their dorm balcony, but now the debate rages on about what the problems are. Understandably, people are angry and the students are being quite vocal about the issue.

Talk of the electric heater, dubbed ‘热得快‘ has been the focus of many conversations online, as many students have said that the reason why they have to use such shoddy electronic appliances is because there is no heated water and electricity is turned off at night, so those students wanting a cup of tea, a bowl of instant noodles, or a hot shower at night have to use these appliances. There was also discussion of whether or not safety facilities, ie fire extinguishes and emergency exits, were up to par in Chinese university dorms, with many people arguing that they are not.

One post, from Aibang.com, explains these points:

最根本的问题是，学生从家里来上学，现在生活的一些设备离不开电，而学校仅仅是单纯的禁止个处罚有用么？为什么不改善宿舍的居住环境呢？如果学校有饮水机，或者将开水设备安排在每层宿舍楼，那么至少那种劣质的“热得快”那个学生还会买呢？你宿舍24小时供电，首先就会避免了因为停电而忘记关闭电源的事故发生，难道学校领导意识不到？

It’s true. Students born in the late 1980s and early 1990s–as all of the shanghai fire victims were–are used to having running, and yes, even hot water available to them at all hours of the day and night. They are used to having a bunch of appliances, be it computers or otherwise, always an arm’s width away. The poster of the above comment argues that simply banning and fining people for having such appliances doesn’t get at the root of the issue. What is being argued for, then, is an investment in safety education, facilities–that is, bringing student dorms into the modern era, equipping them so that these types of incidents won’t happen again.

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This CNN article has the number of dead pegged at 4 but it seems that now the official number of dead has risen to five. What makes the whole thing much much worse is the fact that, according to one SIna report that we read, that problems were discovered a month ago. Check out what is said in this paragraph:

金德水责问地铁施工相关负责人：“是否在事故之前就曾发现过事故隐患？”该负责人表示确实存在隐患。

　　赵铁锤随即痛批，为什么不事先采取措施解除隐患？相关负责人表示，已经和上级部门汇报过，需要等待上级批示。

　　三位领导均表示，不可能有这种事，出现这么重大的安全隐患，施工单位应该及时采取措施补救，根本不需要等待审批。

The leaders–provincial and city officials–asked some of the construction company reps if there really had been problems discovered earlier–and the reps said yes, and then the officials asked why immediate measures were not taken to solve the problem, and the reps said that they needed to report the problem to their superiors and wait for approval. And the officials said that a problem of this seriousness did not have to go through that whole bureaucratic rigamarole.

If you’ve lived in China, and know Chinese people—this kind of tragedy is nothing new. The numbness follows and subdues the anger much more quickly now, because you almost expect this kind of thing to happen on a regular basis in China. They are notoriously bad on worker safety. They are known around the world for cutting corners at the cost of human life.

I’ve had enough of people dying needlessly of late, what with Tom passing away and then this shit. Every fucking day. Every fucking day. This shit and this shit world. How do you manage to go on, without your consciousness bludgeoned by fear? You know full well that people around are NOT trying their best to keep you alive and healthy. They aren’t wishing for your death, but this kind of laxity really just drives you insane because it implies that for someone, somewhere, decisions are being made that place something else above human life in value. And guess what, there are very few things in life that have greater value than a human being’s life, and the meaning in each person’s existence.

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This Xinhua article comes up with some interesting statistics: in the last 300 years, there were 50 natural disasters that claimed over 100,000 lives, and of those, 26 were in China, with the total number of dead numbering 103 million, 68% of the total amount.

Over 1/10 of the earthquakes happen in China, as well as typhoons, droughts, etc.

So the article then delves into the issue of insurance…specifically natural disaster insurance. The problem, as with anything in China, if is there a legal system that can support it, and then of course come the issues of the particular insurance models that will spring up to compete for the buyer’s money. But this article calls for the government to make haste in setting up the proper legal protocols so that instead of just having the government and the victims “split” the costs of the damages, a third-party–the insurance companies–start playing a part. The article cites 9-11 as an example…

Technorati Tags: earthquake, insurance, wenchuan, sichuan, china, chinese, 9-11, accident, disaster, history

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