不该发生的悲剧—华尔街日报

OPINION 

An Unnecessary Tragedy

不该发生的悲剧

By COSTAS SYNOLAKIS

FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA

May 14, 2008

The massive earthquake that hit central China Monday is the second natural disaster to hit Asia within a week. Unlike the cyclone that hit Burma, however -- whose trail of destruction could have been mitigated had a warning system been in place -- China's tremor, which measured magnitude 7.9, wouldn't have been helped by such a system. Earthquake prediction, practiced anywhere in the world, remains to be proven useful. Better building-code enforcement, on the other hand, could have saved lives.

本周一中国中部地区发生的大地震是一周之内袭击亚洲的第二场自然灾害。然而与袭击缅甸的飓风不同——飓风所造成的破坏可以通过预警系统被减轻——中国的7.9级地震无法被准确预报。虽然全世界都在进行地震预测，其有效性仍然有待验证。然而，施行更严格的建筑规范却能实实在在地挽救生命。

Even in Indonesia's Banda Aceh, the area hit worst by the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, many well-engineered buildings survived fairly intact, while adjacent structures collapsed. In fact, almost everywhere in the Indian Ocean where the impact of the 2004 tsunami was felt, most buildings constructed to higher standards -- such as churches, mosques and temples or other places of worship -- survived fairly unscathed. And that earthquake competes with the 1964 Great Alaskan earthquake as one of the largest seismic events ever measured.

即使是在印尼2004年发生过苏门答腊岛地震的班达亚齐，很多设计优良的建筑物在邻近房屋倒塌的情况下，能够几乎完好的幸免于难。事实上，几乎在所有受到2004年海啸影响的印度洋地区，按照较高标准施工的建筑——如：教堂、清真寺、僧院等祭拜场所——基本完好无损。而且那场地震可与史上最强地震之一的1964年阿拉斯加8.5级大地震相提并论。

China's massive earthquake wasn't without precedent. In 1993, a magnitude 7.5 tremor killed about 9,000 people in the northwestern Sichuan Basin. Monday's event happened when, according to the United States Geological Survey, the Earth's crust underlying the high Tibetan Plateau edged west, rubbing up against the crust underlying the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China. It was a shallow event, meaning the collision happened only a few miles below the Earth's surface -- intensifying the destruction. Its tremors were felt even 2,000 kilometers away, in Bangkok.

中国发生大地震并非没有先例。1933年(译者注：原文为1993年，有误)，四川盆地西北部曾发生里氏7.5级地震，约9000人丧生。据美国地质调查所，此次地震原因为：西藏高原地壳向西移动，擦裂了与之相靠的四川盆地和中国东南部的地壳（译者注：感谢whyyou的指正）。震源距地表很浅——这加重了地震的破坏性。即使是2000公里外的曼谷也有震感。

The Chinese government was aware of this threat and took measures to protect against it. In 2006, Chinese regulators updated the country's building codes and made major changes in regard to new buildings' required "earthquake loads," or the ability of a structure to withstand shaking. China's code is now on par with similar codes in seismically active areas of the world. China has become one of the most active users of modern approaches of structural control and health monitoring of civil infrastructure structures. Virtually all major new civil structures, such as long bridges and athletic stadiums, are heavily instrumented with sensors that can detect and assess rapid changes in the building's condition. Innovation is booming.

中国政府了解这个隐患并采取了措施进行防范。2006年，中国政府修订了国家建筑标准，对新建建筑的抗震等级，或者说对晃动的承受力进行了较大的修改。中国现在施行的标准与世界其他地震活跃地区施行的标准基本一致。中国已经是使用现代手段对民用基础设施进行监控的国家之一。基本上所有主要的新建民用建筑，比如大桥和体育场，都在灵敏传感器的严密检测之下。新技术在不断发展进步。

As in other countries, however, China's problem is that there are many older structures that do not meet the stricter new codes, or don't maintain it once the building is constructed. From initial reports, the geographical distribution of destruction suggests that near the center of the industrial city of Chengdu, where the damage has been limited, building codes had been enforced. But in the rural areas -- which were hit hardest -- these codes weren't followed. This pattern, where the surrounding, poorer areas of large cities suffer the most casualties, is often observed in the aftermath of natural disasters in developing nations. The types of catastrophic collapses seen in the first news reels from China this week are reminiscent of similar scenes most recently from Bam in Iran in 2003 and Turkey in 1999.

然而同其他国家一样，中国面临的问题是很多较老的建筑不能或已经不能满足较严格的新标准。在最初的新闻报道中，地震造成破坏的地理分布显示：作为工业城市的成都，市中心的房屋损毁有限。这说明建筑标准是被执行了的。但在农村地区——也是灾情最严重的地区——建筑标准并未被遵守。在发展中国家，一旦发生自然灾害，大城市周边的贫穷地区受灾最严重。这已成为常理。在对此次中国地震新闻报道中房屋倒塌的情形不禁让人回忆起2003年伊朗巴姆大地震和1999年的土耳其大地震。

Those earthquakes were of a smaller magnitude but had a similar impact in terms of deaths. And many of those deaths were entirely unnecessary. There is no excuse for the collapse of schools or other public buildings such as hospitals, whether they were built recently or decades ago. If any local authority wanted to use public buildings that did not meet current codes, Beijing could have required local governments to retroactively strengthen those structures. In this regard, the Chinese government can do much better.

这些地震震级较小，但所造成死亡人数却相近。其中的很多死亡都不应发生。学校、医院和其他公共建筑的倒塌是不应有任何借口的，无论这些建筑是新建的还是几十年前建的。如果地方政府想要使用不符合最新标准的公共建筑，中央政府应当要求地方政府对这些建筑进行补救性加固。在这方面，中国政府在以后可以进行改进。

The government is now doing what it can now to limit the extent of the damage. Search and rescue operations thus far have been excellent. In the otherwise chaotic city of Dujiangyan, there are reports that emergency vehicles were able to pass through quickly. More than 1,000 search and rescue personnel have been already deployed, many thousands of troops are on the way, and even Premier Wen Jiabao was in the field yesterday, lending support to the rescuers. All this is in sharp contrast to what happened in 1976, when the Tangshan earthquake left 240,000 dead. China then was in denial, and the news of the carnage trickled out for weeks without any official acknowledgment from the government.

中国政府现在在尽一切努力将损失降到最低。到目前为止进行的搜救行动是非常及时有效的。在一些受灾城市，如都江堰，有报道称急救车辆能够顺畅的行驶。1000多名搜救人员已经展开行动，数千名军人正在赶往灾区，昨天温家宝总理也到达灾区指挥救灾。所有这些与1976年造成24万人死亡的唐山大地震形成了鲜明对比。那时中国否认地震发生，严格控制媒体报道，政府没有发布官方消息。

So far, China has been very open in reporting the extent of the damage -- which anyway is difficult to hide given the global seismic networks -- and has been equally open in encouraging foreign help. Burma should take note: Natural phenomena such as earthquakes, cyclones and tsunamis can become natural disasters only when governments fail to monitor, prepare and, when they occur, acknowledge that no country can handle a devastating disaster on its own. If only China had earlier lived up to the world's expectation of an industrial power, and implemented and enforced building codes -- particularly in an area known to have produced deadly earthquakes in the past -- it wouldn't have to ask for so much help today.

到目前为止，中国政府开放了对地震损失的报道——全球地震监测网络也使封锁消息变得很难——并同样积极地接受国际援助。缅甸政府则应吸取教训：类似地震、飓风和海啸等自然现象会在政府无法监测和准备的情况下变成自然灾害，而且应当明白的是，这些天灾发生后，没有国家能够独自面对破坏性的大灾难。如果中国能够早些达到世界对一个工业化国家的要求，并且贯彻实施建筑标准——尤其在那些曾经发生过地震灾害的地区——那么他今天就不会要求那么多援助了。

Mr. Synolakis is professor of civil engineering at the University of Southern California.