Safer school structures

The Yunnan provincial bureau of education announced on Friday that 6 million sq m of poor quality school buildings province-wide would be demolished and new buildings with a higher resistance to earthquakes will be constructed instead.

This is the first response from a local government to the huge death toll of students in the Sichuan earthquake, and we anticipate more local governments will follow Yunnan's example.

The fact that schools suffered the heavier death toll can be attributed to various reasons. The quake took place during school hours. Most classrooms are spacious, usually wider than ordinary rooms, furniture and other objects are easily knocked about with greater force. In such circumstances, schools should be more quake-resistant than they are, and more so than normal housing.