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New thinking crucial to rebuilding quake zone

By Sun Shiwen (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-06 07:46

More than 20 days after the 8.0-magnitude quake jolted Sichuan province, we are now facing another mission no less challenging than saving lives under the rubble: rebuilding the homes and cities destroyed by the quake.

As the quake-affected area is still being rocked by aftershocks, which have numbered 10,000 by this week, the affected zones are still troubled by new landslides or tremors. Therefore, the people still have to live in temporary shelters.

Yet, this is the best time for us to draw a blueprint of reconstruction in these areas. The earlier we fix the plan, the better it would be and the more fully prepared we can be for carrying it out. Talents and resources from as many departments as possible should be involved in fixing the plans.

And two issues must be attended to at this moment: improving the legal texts about reconstruction and drafting the specific reconstruction plan.

The current laws and regulations might need revisions for applying to special situations in rebuilding the quake-hit regions.

The government is pouring huge amounts of capital and other resources in these regions to help with the reconstruction. Charity donations are also flowing in from across the country. In this process, proper supervision must be in place to watch allocations and the use of these resources for the benefit of local people.

Meanwhile, the rebuilding involves a mass construction within a relatively short time span. The time limit makes the construction different from the regular practice. It might be necessary to revise the legal stipulations about procedures, means and other terms during the rebuilding.

Such revisions should aim at facilitating the reconstruction so that the affected zones could resume their productivity and normal social order. And incentives could also be offered in these revisions to encourage more support from other regions to the reconstruction.

Besides settling the issues arising from reconstructing the quake-affected areas, the legal revisions should also be applicable to similar situations in other areas.

To ensure the rebuilding is carried out smoothly, temporary rules should be worked out governing the construction standards, the transfer of land-use rights, mid- and long-term planning in these areas and many other issues that are difficult to presume at this moment.

The lawmakers should give full consideration to the interests, rights and opinions of local residents in the revisions. And the revisions should also make it possible for local residents to participate in rebuilding their own homes and cities in various ways.

Besides the legal provisions, an overall plan should be fixed as a roadmap for the reconstruction. Instead of simply building houses and apartments or restoring the cities to their original shape, the reconstruction should aim to give local residents and local society a new life. Therefore, a comprehensive plan should be drawn to coordinate the reconstruction in time and space to guarantee the efficiency.

Several points are indispensable in this plan, the foremost among which is a scientific evaluation of the reconstruction locations. Such an evaluation must include an assessment of the geological and geographical conditions of these locations. Regions prone to geological risks should be avoided.

As long as the geological conditions are fine, the new plan should pay enough attention to the original plan of urban construction. The original plan could be integrated into the reconstruction plan, while unreasonable or outdated parts of the original plan should be improved.

As for the reconstruction of cities and towns, the plan should attach a priority to restoring the urban function, but several pitfalls should be avoided.

The area of the city or the town should be reasonable. It would be inefficient and inconvenient in the future if the new cities and towns witness a dramatic rise in their sizes.

New residential communities could be built to shelter people, but the safety of constructions should be the top priority. And in these communities, permanent buildings, instead of temporary ones, should form the majority.

If the cities and towns could be reconstructed on their original sites, it would be a good time to upgrade the urban layout, like building more parks and greens as emergency shelters. Constructions that did not collapse during the quake should undergo a strict examination and those damaged should be either renovated or pulled down.

In rural areas, the reconstruction could be a good opportunity for rearranging the village layout in a more scientific way, though the villagers' opinion must be respected.

A priority in the reconstruction plan is to restore the operation of public facilities. Otherwise, normal life in the affected zones could be hard to restore. The original public facilities should be repaired and reused, if possible.

The last but not the least important element that should be included in the plan is to raise the standards of resistance to geological disaster risks in the new buildings, public facilities and the areas as a whole. Such standards should be compulsory for buildings constructed by property developers, and the government should offer subsidies or direction in this regard for houses built by rural residents themselves.

The author is a professor at College of Architecture and Urban Planning under Tongji University

(China Daily 06/06/2008 page8)