Bpcascio wrote:
May 12, 2008 18:54
This natural disaster is unfortunate and I would expect nothing but an "all out effort" by the government considering the microscope China is currently under. We should hope this leads to an increased quality of disaster relief and an increased enforcement of building construction codes.

It is one thing to build dams and Olympic venues to proper standards, but with so many other buildings collapsing particular scrutiny may fall on China's system for setting and enforcing construction codes in earthquake-prone zones such as Sichuan.

Peter Sammonds, professor of geophysics at University College London, called the earthquake "tremendous."  

"Particularly in the more remote, the more mountainous part where this has taken place, a lot of the buildings are built on sediments that are quite unstable. They're probably liquifying, causing the buildings to collapse," he said.

"You might expect landslides to occur, which could actually stop the relief efforts going through on the roads, so this could be very grim in the remoter, more mountainous parts of this province."

Coming from a government that usually strives to downplay bad news, this is a clear indication of a truly dire situation.