Revelation of 5.12 Quake, Sichuan, China

Part 5 Post-disaster problems that require long-term concern

Supercourse China 超级课程 ·中国http://www.SuperCourse.cn/

2008-6-6

Outline5.1 Infrastructure reconstruction5.2 Social Security5.3 All that needs consideration5.4 Accumulation of epidemiological studies

5.4.1 What should epidemiological researchers do?5.4.2 Methodological issues of post-quake research5.4.3 Research suggestion5.4.4 Methodological techniques of epidemiological

investigation

5.5 Disaster risk model

5.1 Infrastructure reconstruction

Infrastructure Damage

1 Collapsed Buildings 5.36 Million $

2 Damaged Buildings 21 Million $

3 Pipes 5,000 km

4 Water tanks 839

5 Water treatment works 1,281

• Irrigation systems for 100,000 hectares of paddy fields

• > 50,000 greenhouses

• 7.3 million square meters of livestock barns

Agricultural DamageAgricultural Damage

Relief web

• Livelihoods of many of affected people is highly dependent on agriculture

• Vulnerable to food insecurity– Loss of cereal stocks – Damaged agriculture production – Impaired income generation

Agricultural DamageAgricultural Damage

Building Damage

• Number of damaged/collapsed: >15,000,000

• Building earthquake resistant structures makes good economic sense: 3-5% for typical buildings

Giant Pandas

• Unknown situation of 280 gian

t pandas in Wolong National N

ature Reserve

www.iht.com

Principles of reconstruction

• There are four principles that the post-disaster reconstruction should follow: 1) scientific planning of development; 2) harmonization; 3) caution and thrift; 4) comprehensiveness.

Site-Selection of the Reconstruction

• Points: avoid the fault zone and alpine valleys, choose a relatively safe place

• Other considerations: problems of staff residential area as regards drinking water, transportation, national habits and cultural heritage

Xhnet.com

5.2 Social Security

Do not forget children in Sichuan!

• At least 5,498 children have been left alone in Sichuan Province's quake zone, either because they have been orphaned or their parents cannot be located

Do not forget elderly in Sichuan!

• About 4,800 elderly people left alone due to death of their family or they have been separated from all their relatives

Security policy of the Injured, the disabled, and orphans

• Building welfare house to arrange for the injured, the disabled and orphans proposed by The Home Office of Sichuan Province 　　

The relocation protection of emigrating victims

• According to the initial program, in addition to temporary resettlement for victims, the victims will be funded grants, encouraged to rely on the friends and relatives. The civil affairs departments of other provinces are allowed to accept rehousing people in the disaster areas after necessary formalities.

5.3 All that needs consideration

Protection of Cultural Heritages

• State Ethnic Affairs Commission launched an emergency rescue program to salvage Qiang cultural heritage

A-ba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and the Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County are seriously affected by the disaster; a large number of cultural heritage are damaged; some successors of non-material cultural heritage were killed

国家民委

Drug Abuse: an example in Bam Earthquake in Iran

Ali Ardalan

Substance abuse in Bam

Opium abuse

Prevalence before the earthquake: 30 % male, 5% female (anecdotal evidence)

Norm culture

A major problem in the treatment

of hospitalized patients

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Opium odor

High price of

opium

Heroin

Injection

Low price of heroin

Lack of money

Security concern

Psychological

consequences

of earthquake

Unemployment

Inadequate withdrawal

services

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Changing the pattern of substance abuse in Bam

5.4 Accumulation of epidemiological studies

Few earthquakes have been adequately studied epidemiologically, with the exceptions previously noted (122). It is vital that plans for follow-up epidemiology be developed before an earthquake occurs so that the initial surveillance data collected will allow proper follow-up (123).

Detailed Follow-Up Epidemiology

CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE GAPS

Because we do not know enough about the precise causes of deaths and nature of injuries that occur during earthquakes, relief services are often misdirected and community medical/health planning for earthquakes is often inadequate (126). The more we know about the manner in which injuries and deaths occur, the better we can prepare for and respond to earthquakes. The following are steps researchers can take to help health officials and individuals better prepare for earthquakes.

CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE GAPS (cont.)

! Evaluate the role of occupant behavior in earthquake injury susceptibility.

! Collect more extensive data concerning the circumstances of entrapment (e.g., location of victims in the collapsed structure). Lack of such data has made planning search and rescue actions, providing proper medical care, and requesting the appropriate outside aid more difficult.

CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE GAPS (cont.)

! Incorporate postearthquake research findings into specific emergency-preparedness and response-guidance protocols. The gap between what researchers have learned and the knowledge base underlying the protocols of the "user community" (e.g., response and recovery organizations) can be lessened considerably if researchers and members of the user community interface more effectively. Results of research should be communicated to key decision-makers and citizens at national, state, and local levels so that they can incorporate such findings into community earthquake-preparedness and earthquake-response programs.

METHODOLOGIC PROBLEMS

The data needed for comparative earthquake studies is often lacking, including such basic information as the magnitude or intensity of the earthquake, the number of deaths, the number of people injured (using standard definitions) and the size of the affected population (131). The study of earthquake injuries is difficult to approach from any narrow background, as it requires the active collaboration of workers having a number of areas of expertise (122). First, one must understand the mechanisms of physical failure in earthquakes. This requires structural engineering and architectural competence.

METHODOLOGIC PROBLEMS (cont.)

The difficulty of collecting information on entrapped people is compounded by the fact that traditional, institutionalized sources of injury data (e.g., hospital medical records) do not usually document information such as where in a building the injury occurred, which attributes of the building contributed to the injury, the injured person's initial behavior when ground shaking began, and the circumstances of entrapment. Unfortunately, this lack of data on the circumstances of entrapment tends to hinder the development of effective search-and-rescue techniques and effective injury-prevention strategies.

METHODOLOGIC PROBLEMS (cont.)

Analytic studies that establish and quantify the magnitude of the relationship between significant risk factors and injuries are also very difficult to organize and conduct in an earthquake-devastated region where most dwellings have been destroyed and populations relocated--factors that make locating injured people extremely difficult. Furthermore, in most areas of the world where major earthquakes have occurred, official census records are poor.

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS

! Seek to understand the mechanism by which people are killed or injured in earthquakes (e.g., what components of the building have directly caused trauma). Such knowledge is essential to developing effective prevention strategies (134).

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS (cont.)

! Establish detailed autopsy data on a sample of earthquake victims to determine the exact cause of death. Such information could provide the basis upon which to suggest modifications to buildings to prevent death. Similar autopsy information has been valuable in analyzing automobile crashes and making appropriate modifications to automobile interiors.

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS (cont.)

! Analyze previous building failures in the context of injury studies. The results could lead to the development of simple but effective retrofit prevention strategies designed to mitigate injury or death.

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS (cont.)

! Examine the manner in which buildings collapse during other kinds of disasters. For example, structural collapses caused by tornadoes, hurricanes, single-building construction failures, mine disasters, terrorist bombings, aircraft or train crashes, wartime experiences, and so on could provide valuable insights into the manner in which buildings collapse during earthquakes.

Tips of Methodology

• Take epidemiologic research after Bam Earthquake as an example:

Ali Ardalan

Ethical issues of population-based research in disasters

The most important point,

People must be informed that the interviews are unrelated to providing

information for personal service deliveries to deal with their needs.

Verbal consent

Confidentiality of individual information

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13

Geographic-based sampling design in disasters

A very useful tool in Bam,

because of lack of a sampling

frame of residential tents.

Geographic-based sampling plan

Cross-road

Square

Selected start point

Geographic zone

Section 1

Section 3

Section 2

Main street

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500 m

Minor street, Alley

Movement direction

Tent

15

Cross-road

Square

Selected start point

Main street

Geographic-based sampling plan

500 m

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Minor street, Alley

Movement direction

Tent

Cross-road

Square

Selected start point

Main street

Geographic-based sampling plan

Cross-road

Square as selected

start point

Main street

Minor street, Alley

Tent

Movement direction

500 m

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Geographic-based sampling plan

Limitation of cross-sectional studies in post-disaster period of Bam

earthquake

Potential selection bias in determining the risk factors of

mortality and injuries and also their

incidence estimations

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Population movement After the earthquake

Zones

Earthquake-stricken

area

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77%

15%

7%1%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Bricks,concrete,

steel

Clay andmud bricks

Mud bricksbearing

walls, withsteel roof

Othermodern

style20

The main construction materials of earthquake-stricken population houses based on a cross-sectional study on 19th and 20th days of post-disaster period in Bam

A consequence of cross-sectional studies in post-disaster period of Bam

Total death: 40 % of

population

Death by

cross-sectional

study

18 %

Selection

bias

- 45 %

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Conclusion:Considering the limitations of cross-sectional and case-control studies, it seems a retrospective cohort approach, for instance, based on before-quake list of governmental employees, would be decreases the aforementioned problem.

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5.5 Disaster risk model

30 years continuous evolution in the

practice of Crisis or Disaster Management

Civil defense

Emergency assistance

Disaster response and relief

Humanitarian assistance

Emergency management

Civil protection

Disaster mitigation and prevention

Disaster Risk Management

Strategic shift

from managing

a disastrous

event to more

preventive and

proactive

approaches!!

What is Disaster risk reduction

(disaster reduction or DRR)?

• The conceptual framework of elements considered

with the possibilities to minimize vulnerabilities and

disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid

(prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness)

the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad

context of sustainable development !

• A potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon

or human activity that may cause the loss of life or

injury, property damage, social and economic

disruption or environmental degradation.

Natural Geological China Earthquake

Hydro meteorological Flood, Hurricane

Biological Pandemic

Hyman Induced Environmental degradation Deforestation

Technological Nuclear release

What is the Hazard?

What is the Vulnerability?

• The conditions determined by physical, social,

economic, and environmental factors or processes,

which increase the susceptibility of a community to the

impact of hazards.

• Vulnerable Sichuan:

o Unprepared people

o Non-resistant house & school building

o High-density population

o etc.

• In the case of earthquakes, vulnerability factors may be summarised as fallows:

-Location of settlements in seismic areas,-Inadequate building practices and regulations,-Dense concentration of buildings with high

occupancy,-The lack of warning systems and of public

awareness on earthquake risks.• In the developing countries, the main increase in

risk can be attributed to overcrowding, faulty land-use planning and construction, inadequate infrastructure and services and environmental degradation.

• The probability that a particular system or population will be affected by hazards is known as “risk”. Hence, it can be said that,

• Risk=Vulnerability x Hazard

or, taking into account coping capacity:

• Risk= VulnerabilityxHazard

Coping Capacity

-Vulnerability has always economic, social, organisational and educational dimensions.

• “Mitigation” can be defined as the permanent reduction of the disaster risk and can be categorized as “primary mitigation” which refers to reducing the presence of the hazard and of the vulnerability, and “secondary mitigation”, which refers to reducing the impact of the hazard.

• “Preparedness” covers the measures that insure the organized mobilization of personel, funds, equipment and supplies within a safe environment for effective relief, “response” can be defined as the set of activities implemented after the impact of a disaster in order to assess the needs, reduce the suffering, limit the spread and the consequences of the disaster and open the way to rehabilitation.

Sichuan earthquake: Risk model

• Maybe Sichuan was not able to modify the

hazard part of the earthquake risk model, and

predict it precisely, BUT they could assess their

vulnerability conditions and reduced them!

• This has been the same experience in Bam &

Kashmir, Yogyakarta !

Risk awareness & Knowledge development

including education, training, research and

information are of the important fields of

action for Disaster Risk Reduction!

Just-in-Time Education

Let’s teach the communities right now !

Supercourse China has already made more just-in-time PPT about the Sichuan Earthquake, which concerned with self-rescue and mutual-help in the earthquake, public health problems, as well as the first and secondary rescue( including psychological reconstruction ) after the disaster ect. Please visit: http://www.supercourse.cn/