China should learn from Japan on earthquake-resistant construction

Why did earthquake-resistant buildings constructed after the Wenchuan earthquake collapse in the Ya'an earthquake? We should reflect on our construction quality, says an editorial in China Youth Daily. Excerpts:

The earthquake in Ya'an, Sichuan province, has caused great losses to local people. It's reported that almost all the buildings in Baoxing county in Ya'an, including those built after the Wenchuan earthquake, were damaged.

After the Wenchuan earthquake, all the reconstruction buildings were designed and built with the requirement of resisting a magnitude-8, intensity-9 earthquake. These buildings should have been safe in the Ya'an earthquake, which was magnitude-7 and intensity-9. But what we see now is that reconstructed quakeproof buildings are still vulnerable, which has sparked widespread public anger.

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9 earthquake hit Japan and led to a strong tsunami, but the death toll in Japan was only one-seventh of that of Wenchuan, and most of the deaths were caused by the tsunami rather than building collapses. Japanese buildings' quakeproof requirement is only magnitude-7. Why didn't our higher standards for earthquake-resistant construction work at all?

Experts have shown that there are some differences between the building standards of China and Japan, which is what we should improve in the future. But more importantly, construction quality in China is indeed not as good as it is in Japan. That's why we should think twice to avoid further damage.