China quake: 'This is not a natural disaster - this is done by humans'

[Bluebear]

Distress turns to anger as residents of one town blame cost-cutting and poor workmanship for the collapse of several buildings in the quake.

...Like many parents here, their mood was turning from raw grief to fury as they waited for further news. Twenty-four hours after the quake hit, they were losing hope and only rage was left. They blamed everyone: soldiers for coming too late, the builders for cutting corners, officials for – they claimed - siphoning off cash.

"The contractors can't have been qualified. It's a 'tofu' building. Please, help us release this news," the husband said.

"About 450 were inside, in nine classes and it collapsed completely from the top to the ground. It didn't fall over; it was almost like an explosion."

The distraught couple's neighbour, still half-hoping for a sight of her daughter, burst out angrily: "Why isn't there money to build a good school for our kids? Chinese officials are too corrupt and bad. These buildings outside have been here for 20 years and didn't collapse - the school was only 10 years old. They took the money from investment, so they took the lives of hundreds of kids. They have money for prostitutes and second wives but they don't have money for our children. This is not a natural disaster - this is done by humans."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/13/china.naturaldisasters3

[Johonny]

1. yes the #1 victim of

cheap Chinese goods are the Chinese people themselves.

[JuniperLea]

2. At least they are aware now...

Or actually speaking in such terms anyway. Who knows how long they have been aware.

With the horrid pollution there, it seems another human suffering outcry is due any time now.

As I sit on the 39th floor of a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper, I wonder when our time will be... and if all the steel construction will save us, or if this is all really just a security blanket.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. What will be the weak link for LA...

...will be the hospitals.

I, too, am in LA and I have been following the news about all the hospitals closing and how das Gropenfuhrer allowed hospitals to put off retrofitting older buildings to the latest standards.

Imagine the next big 7.0 earthquake in LA with little or no hospitals.

If there is one thing the GOP can do well it's fail.

[Stuart G]

3. It has been written that the real reason the Soviet Union collapsed

was that Gorbachev, after viewing the disastrous result of the Armanian Earthquake of l988, decided that the system wasn't worth saving. Construction was so shoddy, that buildings collapsed just like in this story. Regan had nothing to do with it, it was a decision that the Russian dictator made to get rid of a system that not only created the building that fell apart, but made it impossible to bring relief materials to the suffering. Roads and access was impossible.

I doubt that this will happen in China. But it shows that a totalitarian system produces crap. Just look at the toys and bad meds that have come to the U.S.

Nevertheless, the people there need our help, sympathy and understanding. May help be on the way.

[Disturbed]

4. China is no longer a Communist State. It is a Fascist State.

This is why the Busholini Regime is allied with it.

[Acadia Blue]

6. Right on target! I wish the dumb republicans knew that.

[judasdisney]

11. Fascist state? But they sell nice low-priced goods made by sweaty children. What's wrong with that

[Acadia Blue]

7. The Chinese people do but our stinking corporations who abandoned

us so they could enslave the Chinese don't even need us to buy their toxic crap.

[AndyTiedye]

8. Also Because When Chernobyl Went Kablooey

Nobody even told Gorby, and he was in a meeting somewhere downwind of it.

[MissMarple]

5. I heard something like this on NPR, yesterday.

An American teacher was saying the buildings are not built to with stand quakes, and there is no training about how to respond when a quake hits. In 2001 she taught in Seattle in a reinforced building and with training of staff and children. Turkey, Iran and India have the same problems. Better buildings and training do save lives.

It's all about the regulation.

[Disturbed]

9. Maybe Capitalism isn't as great as it has been cracked up

to be?

[malaise]

10. Capitalism gone mad is

fascism.

[blindpig]

12. Fascism is an end stage of capitalism.

When the carrot no longer suffices the stick will be applied, profits will be maintained and foolish people who espouse egalitarianism will be dealt with.

Fascism: it ain't just swastikas and jackboots.