China’s disaster resilience, a decade after the Sichuan earthquake
The Sichuan earthquake in May 2008 left around 5 million people homeless and killed close to 70.000. A decade after, China has heavily invested in disaster preparedness and response. As the massive earthquake destroyed 1.5 million homes and 70,000 classrooms, China has taken very strict measures to implement earthquake resistant building codes, particularly safety in schools. Learn more about China's attempts towards increasing its disaster resilience, here.
China has 700.000 trained disaster reporters and has recently set up a new emergency management ministry. China is planning to develop an underground monitoring system which will detect earthquakes up to 3 weeks in advance. Experts are urging other vulnerable Asian countries to follow China’s example and increase their disaster preparedness and response capacities.
