OPINION> Commentary
Strength from facts
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-27 07:39

The ancient Chinese saying, "Calamities may help a nation flourish" should work not only to stimulate the morale of this nation in overcoming difficulties in disaster relief and reconstruction, but also to ensure that the reconstruction work does not compromise quality.

When Premier Wen Jiabao wrote the four Chinese characters, duonan xingbang, on the blackboard in a temporary classroom of Beichuan High School, which was devastated in the quake, all present knew what the premier meant.

Premier Wen wanted these students to know that they should never succumb to the wrathful face of nature. Instead, they need to get even greater strength from the sufferings they had experienced to build an even better future.

It is impossible for human beings to stop nature from flying into a rage but it is possible for people to rise up from its devastation with a renewed spirit to rebuild their homes. The damage a natural calamity inflicts on properties and sufferings it causes to people may turn out to be a source, from which an even greater strength can be generated for reconstruction. This should be the philosophy behind this traditional Chinese saying.

When it comes to the specific work of reconstruction, the earthquake provides a lot of lessons that must be learnt. For example, why did some buildings collapse in a matter of minutes while some others in the vicinity withstood the tremor? How some well-organized evacuation made all the difference in avoiding human losses at the critical moment?

Premier Wen Jiabao said that information about the collapsed buildings must be collected to provide references for reconstruction. This is very important.

Only by analyzing samples of concrete or steel of the collapsed buildings will engineers hopefully find out whether the construction quality of these structures were compromised. And only by analyzing the change of geological structure under these buildings will engineers possibly figure out whether these buildings collapsed because of their wrong locations.

Only by making enough efforts to find out what inadequacies in both human efforts and engineering technology contributed to the collapse of so many buildings can local governments or departments involved make better or more scientific plans for the reconstruction.

Calamities will never help a nation flourish unless the nation knows how to draw enough lessons from them.

(China Daily 05/27/2008 page8)