Building standards

For those anxious to get rid of the haunting suspicions and enquiries surrounding the school buildings flattened by the Wenchuan earthquake, there might be good news. A joint survey by three of the country's top engineering schools did not single out building quality as the main cause for the collapse of structures. Poor construction alone would not have resulted in a destruction of such magnitude, we are now told, as the causes were multiple.

We already know that the quake was too strong for the buildings to withstand. Some schools were unfortunately located at the most vulnerable locations, and classroom buildings are inherently at greater risk. Various explanations had been given with a view to direct people's anger against nature. That so many school buildings were razed to the ground, killing so many, was an inevitable consequence of a natural disaster, they said as soon as questions were raised about building quality.

The joint investigation does highlight the common weakness of classroom buildings - larger average floor area, larger doors and windows, and other architectural factors, which make them inherently vulnerable. That, however, does not eliminate poor building quality as one of the causes. Schools built in the early 1990s in accordance with State standards, it found, turned out to be more quake-resistant.