Earthquake Readiness

Believe it or not, but in between all the fun trips and hikes, there's actual work going on here in China. The World Bank website recently posted a nice write-up of one of Paul's projects in Sichuan Province. The article is titled, China: Restoring and Improving Education in Earthquake-struck Areas, and gives a good overview of the need for some investments in this remote area. Here's an example paragraph:

"Damaging over 2,600 schools in the Longnan area, the earthquake four years ago set back an education infrastructure already in need of help. In the aftermath of the quake, a safety assessment rated more than 62% of Longnan’s school buildings as “in need of repair or worse”. The half million students and over 26,000 teachers had to make do with classes in prefab shelters or temporary camps."

For some pictures of Paul at work, check out these two earlier blogs posts about Three Years After the Wenchuan Earthquake and And What Do You Do Again?.

In het Nederlands: China: Restoring and Improving Education in Earthquake-struck Areas op de website van de Wereldbank is een kort artikel over een van Paul's projecten hier in China. Het vertelt over het gebied Longnan, in de provincie Sichuan, waar de Wenchuan aardbeving in mei 2008 bijzonder veel schade had aangericht. Inmiddels zijn veel scholen weer herbouwd--de gebouwen zijn mooier en beter dan ooit tevoren--en ook de leraren zijn beter voorbereid op een eventuele volgende aardbeving.