The most populous country in the world has been lucky in the past few years, even as other Asian nations such as Pakistan, India, Japan and Indonesia have suffered from major earthquakes.

There is little doubt that a major quake will again shake China as the country lies on top of three tectonic plates that are constantly shifting against each other.

China recorded over 40 earthquakes registering seven on the Richter scale or above last century, according to the China Atlas published by the China Mapping Publishing Company.

"Sooner or later, we can't say where, but mainland China will have a magnitude seven or greater earthquake. It will happen again," said Mei Shirong, an expert with the State Seismological Bureau.

Mei was speaking to Chinese portal Sina on the eve of the anniversary of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the northern Chinese coal mining city of Tangshan.

The quake on July 28, 1976, killed at least 240,000 people in the city, 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of Beijing, flattening over 90 percent of its buildings in about 15 seconds.

However, experts say it's questionable whether China has learned a lesson from Tangshan.

Major quake casualties are likely to occur due to China's rapid urbanization and industrializaton, with large numbers of people moving into cities where new buildings are often of poor quality, government officials and experts have warned.

"In recent years, new engineering projects, including high-rises and major construction projects, suddenly emerged in large numbers," Liu Yuchen, deputy director of China's Seismological Bureau, told a meeting last year.

"Chinese cities have dense populations. Once quakes occur, it will create serious casualties and great economic losses."

A large portion of buildings in China's cities were built before 1989 without any consideration for earthquake safety and cannot withstand earthquakes, Liu said.

Adding to the danger is that half of China's cities and 67 percent of its big cities are located in high-risk quake zones, with more people packing into them, according to Liu.

Currently 37 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people live in cities but government predictions are this figure will rise to 75 percent over the next 50 years.

In smaller cities and the countryside, building codes are often even less strictly enforced, according to government officials.

Most houses in rural areas cannot withstand even moderate earthquakes, Du Wei, deputy director of the bureau's Seismic Hazard Prevention and Mitigation Department, was quoted by the China Daily as saying this week.

As a result, it is not rare for an earthquake measuring six on the Richter scale to destroy a huge number of houses, he said.

Paul Harris, a China expert at Hong Kong's Lingnan University, said environmental degradation such as deforestation and excessive mining could also worsen the death toll from earthquakes by increasing the chance of landslides and cave-ins.

"In the recent earthquake in Pakistan, we saw that hillsides that were forested were relatively unaffected and those deforested led to landslides and huge loss of lives," Harris said.

"The same thing can happen in China."

As in Tangshan, where warnings of an imminent quake were ignored, the secretive nature in which the government treats earthquake forecasts continues to contribute to low public awareness.

Seismologists and reporters are not allowed to report earthquake predictions before the government.

In the most recent example, Chinese officials in Yunnan province admitted on Thursday they had predicted last week's 5.1 magnitude earthquake there that killed 22 people, but took no action because of not wanting to scare residents.

Harris said a core problem generally was widespread shortsighted thinking in China and the central government's inability to force local officials to implement safety regulations and quake preparedness measures.

"The loss of lives that comes from earthquakes is not just the consequences of nature," Harris said.

"It's frequently the consequences of government action or lack of, such as enforcement of building codes and regulation on use of agriculture land."

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
China News from SinoDaily.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News