Lessons from a disaster
As you read this, the Caribbean hurricane season will be in full swing, with the potential to heap yet more misery on one of the world’s most beleaguered nations. Storms and floods have wrecked Haiti in the past, but right now, it remains all but paralysed after an earthquake, registering 7.0 on the Richter scale, struck the capital, Port-au-Prince, on 12 January.
Emergency humanitarian relief work has acted as a life-support system for the past six months, but much of Haiti remains broken. Now, a new phase is gathering pace, the long-term planning for the arduous reconstruction of the country, a project that will stretch over several decades and bring together Haitians and the international community’s engineers, planners, strategists and funders.
‘In many ways, we are building from scratch,’ says Albert R Ramdin, assistant secretary general for the Organization of American States (OAS). ‘We are starting to build a country with few facilities – roads, airports, houses, medical facilities.’
Already the poorest nation in the Americas – the UN says 80 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line – Haiti’s earthquake killed more than 250,000 people and left 300,000 injured; the Red Cross, Save the Children and other agencies are supplying food to 3.5 million people. Some reconstruction and clean-up work has begun, but 1.2 million people remain in spontaneous settlements. Even where schools have reopened, reports Tearfund, a quarter of children have stayed away.
‘People are still dislocated,’ says Nigel Timmins, Christian Aid’s humanitarian programmes manager, who recently returned from Haiti. ‘They are living in spontaneous camps, in camps out of town, or they’ve moved out of town altogether.’ This has placed huge pressure on regional towns and rural areas – schools that once had 150 children now have 250, an extended family of eight living in one house may typically now have five additional mouths to feed.
In the immediate aftermath, the UN called for US$1.5billion in international aid (the UK Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti appeal raised £98million). But this sum will be dwarfed by the long-term, heavyweight funding required to rebuild Haiti, re-knit its economy and mend its communities. Key aspects of Haitian infrastructure and state functions – roads, bridges and administration buildings, and electricity, water and telephone systems – were obliterated. Such costs will come in somewhere between US$8.1billion and US$13.9billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for an aid package on the scale of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after the Second World War.
The reconstruction debate is now approaching a crossroads. Is Haiti to be rebuilt as it was, or is there an opportunity to alter the structure of the country?
Strategic pillars
In an attempt to map out Haiti’s future, the UN convened a major meeting in March of those Haitian agencies still functioning, the World Bank, the IMF and relief organisations to rake over the country’s bare bones. They produced a post-disaster needs assessment, described as ‘the cornerstone for recovery and reconstruction’ by Doekle Geert Wielinga, senior disaster risk management officer with the World Bank. ‘The assessment looks beyond the immediate humanitarian relief and more to the phase that follows,’ says Wielinga. ‘This is a visionary document that looks at the strategic pillars that Haiti will use for reconstruction and development in three-, five- and ten-year scenarios.’
Solid common sense runs through much of the post-disaster report: resilience to natural disasters underpins all reconstruction, making buildings earthquake-proof and developing an early-warning system. Intriguingly, the report hints at a more ambitious aim, what the aid community refers to as the ‘disaster dividend’. ‘The disaster provides an opportunity to make certain aspects of society better,’ says Wielinga. ‘Schools are largely privately run – how can we make education universal? Access to healthcare is poor – how can we improve that?’
Ramdin agrees, but cautions that ‘the country has an opportunity to rebuild for the better, if bold decisions are taken. But it’s true, and it’s a very sad occurrence, that it has taken an earthquake for people to talk of a better future for Haiti.’
Yet aid and reconstruction experts are mindful of the many obstacles that await. ‘There has been a global outpouring of resources for Haiti, so there’s a challenge to coordination because of the sheer number of agencies on the ground,’ says Ben Ramalingam, head of research and development at ALNAP, a network of international humanitarian agencies established in 1997 following the Rwanda genocide. ‘But just as important as coordination within specific phases of the response – relief, recovery and reconstruction – is coordination between the phases, to ensure a smooth transition to developmental work.’
The role of history
Haiti’s history will also play a role. ‘I would challenge whether you can say Haiti is starting from scratch, just because it has such a chequered history,’ says Timmins. ‘Despite the earthquake, the old fault lines, the corruption, are still there. There’s huge inequality between the rich and the poor. The history of coups and human rights abuses means there’s a weak social contract between the government and the people.’
Whether natural disasters always improve on what went before is also uncertain. ‘Disaster really made a difference in Indonesia after the tsunami, where people in Aceh discovered their common humanity and it led to a peace process,’ says Ramalingam. ‘But it made things worse in Sri Lanka, where people ended up saying that aid shouldn’t be given to certain parts of the country. It’s hard to tell what will happen in Haiti.’
The loss of a large slice of the middle class to the earthquake is likely to act as a brake on recovery. Structural losses were, according to the World Bank, mainly in the production sector, in small micro-enterprises, and while the statistics are anecdotal, the quake generally levelled the concrete structures that housed the banks, schools and the middle class. ‘Any society relies on its middle class, and schools lost teachers, banks lost clerks, and many local organisations lost their leaders,’ says Timmins. ‘At the very least, it’s going to cause a delay to the process of reconstruction.’
As for templates for long-term reconstruction, Wielinga points to the varying responses to the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. ‘Our experience in Aceh and from the work that we’ve done so far in Haiti shows us that involving the communities, with strong leadership from the government, has proven to be more cost-efficient and efficient in the long term,’ he says. Ramalingam agrees, emphasising dialogue with the affected community and sensitivity to the likely impact of different policies on them. ‘But history tells us this succeeds where leadership is located in the community itself,’ he says. ‘You get effective reconstruction where you get effective leadership.’
Haiti’s poor human rights and record of corruption – Transparency International ranks it the world’s fourth most corrupt nation – makes observers question whether its government is up to the task. ‘The chances of Haiti making it on its own resources are some way off,’ says Timmins. ‘There’s a chance now for more open budgets and accountability, and that will be key to real recovery. It’s important to involve local communities and ensure they are consulted.
‘You do need the World Bank and the IMF to swing into action but I’m discouraged by talk of the need for three airports,’ he continues. ‘People need to be consulted over whether they think they need a grain mill or an airport. The problem with major infrastructure projects is that they are often too open to vested interests and corruption.’
Cash handouts
As well as drawing on lessons from other disasters, Haiti is also highlighting key lessons for responding to the catastrophes of the future. ‘Traditional emergency humanitarian relief has been focused on rural areas miles from anywhere, such as the 1980s Ethiopian famine,’ says Ramalingam. ‘But Port-au-Prince is the exact opposite: a highly urban, dynamic city. A fundamental question is how to respond in an urban context, and we don’t really have enough knowledge and experience on which to draw. This is a challenge for humanitarian efforts because we are just moving from being a predominantly rural world to a predominantly urban world.
‘Urban disasters present real challenges to effective response,’ he continues. ‘There is greater political complexity, more fluidity among the population, livelihoods are geared around informal urban economies, infrastructure is a really thorny and interconnected issue, and space is at a premium. Lessons from Haiti will be increasingly relevant in an urbanising world. There needs to be much more research into understanding what will work in an urban disaster; there’s a real urgency to look at this.’
Technology has played a key role in the aftermath of the earthquake and is likely to be deployed in future catastrophes. ‘The use of IT has been a real feature,’ says Ramalingam. The UN put in place a shared portal called One Response to enable operational agencies to share information and key documents relating to their ongoing work and the changing humanitarian situation. Another innovative tool, Ushahidi, has been used to develop a map of real-time needs collated by text messages. This was first employed during the 2008 Kenyan riots, but has seen its widest rollout in Port-au-Prince.
More controversial has been the use of cash handouts to local people, with some calls to use cash as a wholesale alternative to goods. ‘This is a sensitive area for some aid agencies, but the evidence is that it can be a very effective form of relief,’ says Ramalingam. ‘Cash-based relief is an idea that has been gathering support for several decades but is seeing widespread application in Haiti.
‘Large-scale cash distribution worked well after the tsunami,’ he continues. ‘It can be a vital means for getting the local economy going and providing relief. There used to be the idea that you can’t give people cash because you can’t trust them to spend it wisely – which is a very Victorian “undeserving poor” attitude. But agencies do need to take care – they need a clear sense of the local economy, cultural norms and any possible security issues.’
Relocation, relocation
Key long-term decisions are being taken this summer. Haiti’s government appears keen to decentralise the economy and expand secondary cities, but disinclined to relocate Port-au-Prince. Before the earthquake, 60 per cent of activity took place there, and Professor Paul Collier, a former special adviser on Haiti to the UN, argues there’s a need to relocate economic activity away from the city, reducing its population density and replacing poorly constructed slums on unstable hillsides.
‘The key point is not to concentrate on Port-Au-Prince,’ agrees the OAS’s Ramdin. ‘There should be decentralisation so that rural people don’t just go to urban areas. We need to build roads so farmers can take goods to market. It’s a massive undertaking in terms of physical projects.’
Agricultural modernisation is likely to play an influential role. Even though 80 per cent of the population is involved in agriculture, Haiti had become dependent on food imports before the earthquake. ‘It’s imperative today for Haiti to retrieve its past potential in the matter of agriculture,’ says Duly Brutus, Haitian ambassador to the OAS, who says his government plans to repair agricultural infrastructures in the Artibonite Valley, which traditionally provides the main staples to the whole country.
Yet, while it’s easy to talk surgically of reconstruction, for a flow chart to calculate how much trade a new motorway would generate, Timmins points out that we’re dealing with traumatised human beings. ‘The emotional impact of this can’t be underestimated,’ he says. ‘There’s a process of bereavement going on. People are still finding out that friends they knew were killed. In that context, you can’t just say, “Right, let’s all square up and get on with reconstruction.”’
There is some good news. Amid the apocalyptic analysis of Haiti, the IMF points out that those parts of the nation that survived relatively unscathed will play a significant role in the country’s recuperation. The IMF’s mission to Haiti reported that about 80 per cent of Haiti’s textile capacity, which is located outside the capital, was still capable of operating. Textiles make up about 90 per cent of Haiti’s exports.
Air of confidence
For now at least, there is a can-do air of confidence around those close to reconstruction efforts. ‘I’m optimistic,’ says Ramdin. ‘But we have to lower our expectations to a point where we aren’t disappointed if progress is slower than planned. The country needs political stability in the long term, and we need to make sure that resources to Haiti are managed in a co-ordinated manner.
‘It depends on the capacity of Haiti’s leadership to design and implement projects – but that capacity is limited in many ways,’ he continues. ‘It’s going to be incremental. We need to strengthen institutions and get the support of the private sector and get to a point in 15 years or so where Haiti can take off on its own.’
Can the rebuilding process be followed through? The jury is out on whether the international appetite to stick with Haiti exists. ‘It’s eminently possible – whether it happens is another matter,’ says Timmins. ‘I don’t get the impression that Haiti is significantly different to any other major disaster, and I think the international community’s response will be similar to Darfur, the tsunami or the Balkans.
‘A lot will boil down to the ability of the Haitian government,’ he continues. ‘If it does a good job over the next 12 months, then people will respond. But if the government goes belly up once the media spotlight goes away, then people will question whether they should stick with it. Right now, a lot of people are rooting for Haiti.’
Rising from the rubble
The differing responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, which was struck by an 8.8-magnitude quake in February, highlight how a relatively developed economy is able to respond more effectively to catastrophe, and cities such as San Francisco (1906) and Tokyo (1923) are often cited as example of how places hit by earthquakes can rebound quickly, and for the better.
But the Chinese city of Tangshan, 150 kilometres east of Beijing, utterly levelled in 1976 by a 7.5-intensity earthquake, illustrates some of the challenges that face Haiti and Port-au-Prince. The Tangshan earthquake struck at 3.42am, the fault rupture occurring directly below the heart of a city, killing 242,000 people. More than 95 per cent of the multi-storey brick apartment buildings and virtually all single-storey masonry buildings in the city centre collapsed.
The parallels with Haiti are clear enough, according to a 2006 report by US-based Risk Management Solutions, published to mark the 30th anniversary of the earthquake. Tangshan’s lifelines were fragile: before the earthquake, hospitals, water and power supply systems, communication, fire prevention, and public transportation didn’t take measures to mitigate for future earthquakes. When the earthquake struck, these systems lost their function completely.
After giving the idea serious thought, the Chinese government rejected a proposition to abandon and relocate the city. Instead, Tangshan was rebuilt, incorporating increased earthquake resistance, and implementing an urban plan to reduce pollution from nearby factories. Parks and open spaces were created to serve as sites for temporary shelters and hospitals. Buildings were strengthened to resist an earthquake of 9.0 or 10.0 intensity, with load-bearing bricks contained by concrete columns and ring beams at floor level. Planning demanded a safe distance between buildings to allow escape paths. It was 1985 before the majority of the population was living in permanent housing.
Last April, a 4.1-magnitude earthquake struck Tangshan – the province’s third quake this year – but no casualties were reported. Nowadays, the city is recommended by backpackers as either a day trip or overnight break from the capital.
September 2010
Emergency humanitarian relief work has acted as a life-support system for the past six months, but much of Haiti remains broken. Now, a new phase is gathering pace, the long-term planning for the arduous reconstruction of the country, a project that will stretch over several decades and bring together Haitians and the international community’s engineers, planners, strategists and funders.
‘In many ways, we are building from scratch,’ says Albert R Ramdin, assistant secretary general for the Organization of American States (OAS). ‘We are starting to build a country with few facilities – roads, airports, houses, medical facilities.’
Already the poorest nation in the Americas – the UN says 80 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line – Haiti’s earthquake killed more than 250,000 people and left 300,000 injured; the Red Cross, Save the Children and other agencies are supplying food to 3.5 million people. Some reconstruction and clean-up work has begun, but 1.2 million people remain in spontaneous settlements. Even where schools have reopened, reports Tearfund, a quarter of children have stayed away.
‘People are still dislocated,’ says Nigel Timmins, Christian Aid’s humanitarian programmes manager, who recently returned from Haiti. ‘They are living in spontaneous camps, in camps out of town, or they’ve moved out of town altogether.’ This has placed huge pressure on regional towns and rural areas – schools that once had 150 children now have 250, an extended family of eight living in one house may typically now have five additional mouths to feed.
In the immediate aftermath, the UN called for US$1.5billion in international aid (the UK Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti appeal raised £98million). But this sum will be dwarfed by the long-term, heavyweight funding required to rebuild Haiti, re-knit its economy and mend its communities. Key aspects of Haitian infrastructure and state functions – roads, bridges and administration buildings, and electricity, water and telephone systems – were obliterated. Such costs will come in somewhere between US$8.1billion and US$13.9billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for an aid package on the scale of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after the Second World War.
The reconstruction debate is now approaching a crossroads. Is Haiti to be rebuilt as it was, or is there an opportunity to alter the structure of the country?
Strategic pillars
In an attempt to map out Haiti’s future, the UN convened a major meeting in March of those Haitian agencies still functioning, the World Bank, the IMF and relief organisations to rake over the country’s bare bones. They produced a post-disaster needs assessment, described as ‘the cornerstone for recovery and reconstruction’ by Doekle Geert Wielinga, senior disaster risk management officer with the World Bank. ‘The assessment looks beyond the immediate humanitarian relief and more to the phase that follows,’ says Wielinga. ‘This is a visionary document that looks at the strategic pillars that Haiti will use for reconstruction and development in three-, five- and ten-year scenarios.’
Solid common sense runs through much of the post-disaster report: resilience to natural disasters underpins all reconstruction, making buildings earthquake-proof and developing an early-warning system. Intriguingly, the report hints at a more ambitious aim, what the aid community refers to as the ‘disaster dividend’. ‘The disaster provides an opportunity to make certain aspects of society better,’ says Wielinga. ‘Schools are largely privately run – how can we make education universal? Access to healthcare is poor – how can we improve that?’
Ramdin agrees, but cautions that ‘the country has an opportunity to rebuild for the better, if bold decisions are taken. But it’s true, and it’s a very sad occurrence, that it has taken an earthquake for people to talk of a better future for Haiti.’
Yet aid and reconstruction experts are mindful of the many obstacles that await. ‘There has been a global outpouring of resources for Haiti, so there’s a challenge to coordination because of the sheer number of agencies on the ground,’ says Ben Ramalingam, head of research and development at ALNAP, a network of international humanitarian agencies established in 1997 following the Rwanda genocide. ‘But just as important as coordination within specific phases of the response – relief, recovery and reconstruction – is coordination between the phases, to ensure a smooth transition to developmental work.’
The role of history
Haiti’s history will also play a role. ‘I would challenge whether you can say Haiti is starting from scratch, just because it has such a chequered history,’ says Timmins. ‘Despite the earthquake, the old fault lines, the corruption, are still there. There’s huge inequality between the rich and the poor. The history of coups and human rights abuses means there’s a weak social contract between the government and the people.’
Whether natural disasters always improve on what went before is also uncertain. ‘Disaster really made a difference in Indonesia after the tsunami, where people in Aceh discovered their common humanity and it led to a peace process,’ says Ramalingam. ‘But it made things worse in Sri Lanka, where people ended up saying that aid shouldn’t be given to certain parts of the country. It’s hard to tell what will happen in Haiti.’
The loss of a large slice of the middle class to the earthquake is likely to act as a brake on recovery. Structural losses were, according to the World Bank, mainly in the production sector, in small micro-enterprises, and while the statistics are anecdotal, the quake generally levelled the concrete structures that housed the banks, schools and the middle class. ‘Any society relies on its middle class, and schools lost teachers, banks lost clerks, and many local organisations lost their leaders,’ says Timmins. ‘At the very least, it’s going to cause a delay to the process of reconstruction.’
As for templates for long-term reconstruction, Wielinga points to the varying responses to the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. ‘Our experience in Aceh and from the work that we’ve done so far in Haiti shows us that involving the communities, with strong leadership from the government, has proven to be more cost-efficient and efficient in the long term,’ he says. Ramalingam agrees, emphasising dialogue with the affected community and sensitivity to the likely impact of different policies on them. ‘But history tells us this succeeds where leadership is located in the community itself,’ he says. ‘You get effective reconstruction where you get effective leadership.’
Haiti’s poor human rights and record of corruption – Transparency International ranks it the world’s fourth most corrupt nation – makes observers question whether its government is up to the task. ‘The chances of Haiti making it on its own resources are some way off,’ says Timmins. ‘There’s a chance now for more open budgets and accountability, and that will be key to real recovery. It’s important to involve local communities and ensure they are consulted.
‘You do need the World Bank and the IMF to swing into action but I’m discouraged by talk of the need for three airports,’ he continues. ‘People need to be consulted over whether they think they need a grain mill or an airport. The problem with major infrastructure projects is that they are often too open to vested interests and corruption.’
Cash handouts
As well as drawing on lessons from other disasters, Haiti is also highlighting key lessons for responding to the catastrophes of the future. ‘Traditional emergency humanitarian relief has been focused on rural areas miles from anywhere, such as the 1980s Ethiopian famine,’ says Ramalingam. ‘But Port-au-Prince is the exact opposite: a highly urban, dynamic city. A fundamental question is how to respond in an urban context, and we don’t really have enough knowledge and experience on which to draw. This is a challenge for humanitarian efforts because we are just moving from being a predominantly rural world to a predominantly urban world.
‘Urban disasters present real challenges to effective response,’ he continues. ‘There is greater political complexity, more fluidity among the population, livelihoods are geared around informal urban economies, infrastructure is a really thorny and interconnected issue, and space is at a premium. Lessons from Haiti will be increasingly relevant in an urbanising world. There needs to be much more research into understanding what will work in an urban disaster; there’s a real urgency to look at this.’
Technology has played a key role in the aftermath of the earthquake and is likely to be deployed in future catastrophes. ‘The use of IT has been a real feature,’ says Ramalingam. The UN put in place a shared portal called One Response to enable operational agencies to share information and key documents relating to their ongoing work and the changing humanitarian situation. Another innovative tool, Ushahidi, has been used to develop a map of real-time needs collated by text messages. This was first employed during the 2008 Kenyan riots, but has seen its widest rollout in Port-au-Prince.
More controversial has been the use of cash handouts to local people, with some calls to use cash as a wholesale alternative to goods. ‘This is a sensitive area for some aid agencies, but the evidence is that it can be a very effective form of relief,’ says Ramalingam. ‘Cash-based relief is an idea that has been gathering support for several decades but is seeing widespread application in Haiti.
‘Large-scale cash distribution worked well after the tsunami,’ he continues. ‘It can be a vital means for getting the local economy going and providing relief. There used to be the idea that you can’t give people cash because you can’t trust them to spend it wisely – which is a very Victorian “undeserving poor” attitude. But agencies do need to take care – they need a clear sense of the local economy, cultural norms and any possible security issues.’
Relocation, relocation
Key long-term decisions are being taken this summer. Haiti’s government appears keen to decentralise the economy and expand secondary cities, but disinclined to relocate Port-au-Prince. Before the earthquake, 60 per cent of activity took place there, and Professor Paul Collier, a former special adviser on Haiti to the UN, argues there’s a need to relocate economic activity away from the city, reducing its population density and replacing poorly constructed slums on unstable hillsides.
‘The key point is not to concentrate on Port-Au-Prince,’ agrees the OAS’s Ramdin. ‘There should be decentralisation so that rural people don’t just go to urban areas. We need to build roads so farmers can take goods to market. It’s a massive undertaking in terms of physical projects.’
Agricultural modernisation is likely to play an influential role. Even though 80 per cent of the population is involved in agriculture, Haiti had become dependent on food imports before the earthquake. ‘It’s imperative today for Haiti to retrieve its past potential in the matter of agriculture,’ says Duly Brutus, Haitian ambassador to the OAS, who says his government plans to repair agricultural infrastructures in the Artibonite Valley, which traditionally provides the main staples to the whole country.
Yet, while it’s easy to talk surgically of reconstruction, for a flow chart to calculate how much trade a new motorway would generate, Timmins points out that we’re dealing with traumatised human beings. ‘The emotional impact of this can’t be underestimated,’ he says. ‘There’s a process of bereavement going on. People are still finding out that friends they knew were killed. In that context, you can’t just say, “Right, let’s all square up and get on with reconstruction.”’
There is some good news. Amid the apocalyptic analysis of Haiti, the IMF points out that those parts of the nation that survived relatively unscathed will play a significant role in the country’s recuperation. The IMF’s mission to Haiti reported that about 80 per cent of Haiti’s textile capacity, which is located outside the capital, was still capable of operating. Textiles make up about 90 per cent of Haiti’s exports.
Air of confidence
For now at least, there is a can-do air of confidence around those close to reconstruction efforts. ‘I’m optimistic,’ says Ramdin. ‘But we have to lower our expectations to a point where we aren’t disappointed if progress is slower than planned. The country needs political stability in the long term, and we need to make sure that resources to Haiti are managed in a co-ordinated manner.
‘It depends on the capacity of Haiti’s leadership to design and implement projects – but that capacity is limited in many ways,’ he continues. ‘It’s going to be incremental. We need to strengthen institutions and get the support of the private sector and get to a point in 15 years or so where Haiti can take off on its own.’
Can the rebuilding process be followed through? The jury is out on whether the international appetite to stick with Haiti exists. ‘It’s eminently possible – whether it happens is another matter,’ says Timmins. ‘I don’t get the impression that Haiti is significantly different to any other major disaster, and I think the international community’s response will be similar to Darfur, the tsunami or the Balkans.
‘A lot will boil down to the ability of the Haitian government,’ he continues. ‘If it does a good job over the next 12 months, then people will respond. But if the government goes belly up once the media spotlight goes away, then people will question whether they should stick with it. Right now, a lot of people are rooting for Haiti.’
Rising from the rubble
The differing responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, which was struck by an 8.8-magnitude quake in February, highlight how a relatively developed economy is able to respond more effectively to catastrophe, and cities such as San Francisco (1906) and Tokyo (1923) are often cited as example of how places hit by earthquakes can rebound quickly, and for the better.
But the Chinese city of Tangshan, 150 kilometres east of Beijing, utterly levelled in 1976 by a 7.5-intensity earthquake, illustrates some of the challenges that face Haiti and Port-au-Prince. The Tangshan earthquake struck at 3.42am, the fault rupture occurring directly below the heart of a city, killing 242,000 people. More than 95 per cent of the multi-storey brick apartment buildings and virtually all single-storey masonry buildings in the city centre collapsed.
The parallels with Haiti are clear enough, according to a 2006 report by US-based Risk Management Solutions, published to mark the 30th anniversary of the earthquake. Tangshan’s lifelines were fragile: before the earthquake, hospitals, water and power supply systems, communication, fire prevention, and public transportation didn’t take measures to mitigate for future earthquakes. When the earthquake struck, these systems lost their function completely.
After giving the idea serious thought, the Chinese government rejected a proposition to abandon and relocate the city. Instead, Tangshan was rebuilt, incorporating increased earthquake resistance, and implementing an urban plan to reduce pollution from nearby factories. Parks and open spaces were created to serve as sites for temporary shelters and hospitals. Buildings were strengthened to resist an earthquake of 9.0 or 10.0 intensity, with load-bearing bricks contained by concrete columns and ring beams at floor level. Planning demanded a safe distance between buildings to allow escape paths. It was 1985 before the majority of the population was living in permanent housing.
Last April, a 4.1-magnitude earthquake struck Tangshan – the province’s third quake this year – but no casualties were reported. Nowadays, the city is recommended by backpackers as either a day trip or overnight break from the capital.
September 2010
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