Earthquake-resistant Reconstruction of Hongshe Primary
School

Background & Objectives

On May 12, 2008 at 2:28 PM, a devastating 8.0 Richter scale magnitude earthquake -- and one of the largest quakes China ever experienced -- struck 92 km northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu. The earthquake, with numerous strong aftershocks in the following weeks, affected a vast area including 7 other provinces (Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Yunnan, Shanxi, Guizhou and Hubei) and left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing, including 6,000 schoolchildren, and nearly 375,000 persons injured. The population exposed to the moderate and severe shaking effects of the earthquake exceeds 120 million people, and many of them live in rural and mountainous areas. The Wenchuan earthquake crisis has hit children especially hard. The earthquake killed thousands of children – no official statistics are available yet – and orphaned many others. The earthquake struck during the early afternoon on Monday at a time when effectively every child (over 99% net enrolment rate at the primary school level in Sichuan Province) was in a classroom. More than 10,000 schools have been damaged and 1.6 million square meters of classroom space is unusable. Twelve per cent of the dead or missing are teachers and school-aged children.

The objectives of the Project are:
* To reconstruct an earthquake-resistant primary school in Sichuan Province; and
* To strengthen local capacity with help of the earthquake-resistant reconstruction of primary school that serves as a model for an affordable earthquake-resistant school reconstruction in rural areas, disabled-friendly, energy and resource efficient, and built with local materials using local human resources.

Activities

* Undertake the design and specifications of the earthquake-resistant Primary School.
* Quality check of the design and specifications of earthquake-resistant Primary School.
* Construction of the earthquake-resistant primary school.
* Design and implementation of a training module along with the construction of the earthquake-resistant primary school.
* Monitoring and evaluation, documentation and reporting of the reconstruction of the earthquake-resistant primary school.
* Dissemination of the documentation and training module nationally, regionally (within Asia-Pacific) and globally.

Results

* Reconstructed earthquake-resistant primary school in Sichuan Province; and
* Strengthened local capacity with help of the earthquake-resistant reconstruction of primary school that serves as a model for an affordable earthquake-resistant school reconstruction in rural areas, disabled-friendly, energy and resource efficient, and built with local materials using local human resources.