(Clearwisdom.net) (Continued)
3. Corruption Led to Poorly Constructed, Dangerous Buildings that Buried Innocent Lives!
The Xinjian Elementary School buildings in Dujiangyan City have for years been identified as dangerous. Year after year, the school applied for relocation or fortifying the buildings and submitted reports with the City Department of Education and the city government. But year after year, nothing was done. In recent years, the real estate market in Dujiangyan City has risen, and prices have skyrocketed. The Dujiangyan City government sells land at high prices, yielding over 30 billion Yuan in annual income. All office buildings at Xingfu Road for the Public Security Department, the Tax Revenue Department and the Armed Forces Department are luxurious and cost tens of millions of Yuan. By contrast, the request to spend less than a million Yuan to resolve the potential danger from poorly constructed school buildings, such as the problematic Xinjian Elementary School, has gone through so many leadership groups and was never attended to. During the May 12 earthquake, more than 500 young lives were buried under the ruins of the school. It turned out that some of the prefabricated panels used in the school's construction were not even strengthened with steel, and making the concrete easy to collapse.
The Juxing Construction Company built the Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan City and the buildings at the Dujiangyan Chinese Medicine Hospital. After the earthquake, all the buildings surrounding these two locations remained standing upright, although damaged. But all the school and hospital buildings collapsed. The Chinese National Earthquake Disaster Emergency rescue team (with rescue experience from earthquakes in Pakistan, Iran and the great tsunami several years ago) came to rescue the students in Juyuan Middle School. Team members said sadly, "This is a typical, poorly constructed and dangerous school building. There is even no steel [reinforcement] at all. It was only metal wires, not rebar!" Since the school building collapsed so quickly and completely, it took the rescue team a lot of time and manpower to only rescue a very small number of students.
The corruption rampant in CCP-ruled China is an even more frightening disaster than the earthquake itself. So many innocent lives perished that could have survived! No wonder the students' parents displayed banners next the bodies of the students, "We do not blame natural disasters. We hate manmade calamities!"
4. Profiting from the Misfortunes of Others
As everyone knows, many local officials have been speculating in land, flipping properties for personal and party gain. The land revenue usually amounts to half or more of the counties or cities' revenue. Regime officials work with real estate agents to raise the real estate value to sell it to the public and thus easily rob people of their life savings, and further make them be heavily in debt. Because the developers buy the high-priced land from the regime, actual construction cost is much lower than the cost of the land. What people pay for their apartment units is primarily "the right to use the land" for the time limit of only several decades.
Dujiangyan City is adjacent to one of the world's cultural heritage sites, "Mountain that Makes the City Green - Dujiangyan." The environment is pleasant and beautiful, driving up land prices. Before the earthquake, the selling price for land in a newly developed residential area had already risen to 4,000-5,000 Yuan per square yard (square meter). The power brokers in the Dujiangyan City administration were after quick success. They sold out most of the land within Yihuan Road and Erhuan Road and were about to face a land shortage.
In the earthquake aftermath, officials from the Dujianyan City administration took advantage of the disaster and made a momentous decision: Within Yihuan Road, 900f the buildings will be torn down, and within the vicinity of Erhuan Road, 50% will be torn down. Experts had confirmed that many buildings that survived the earthquake were still livable or safe after simple maintenance. But the city officials involved in selling land declared these structures to be dangerous and all "need to be torn down." Furthermore, the existing land leases will then be void. Many property owners blocked the excavators and bulldozers with their bodies to prevent them from ruining the structures and shouted, "Give me back my land! If you want to tear it down, you have to run me over!" The scene was extremely tense.
The Yingxiuwan Power Plant funded and built the National Dianwang Building on Xingfu Road. They also bought a large parcel of land next to that building. After the earthquake, Dujianyan City administrators were greedy about that piece of land and attempted to take over, dispatching officers to occupy it. Yingxiuwan Power Plant officials did not let go easily. They reported the incident to higher-ups in the Sichuan Province Power Administration Department. The Sichuan Province Power Administration Department had owned a share of this land. After they heard that officials at the Dujianyan City administration wanted to take advantage of the disaster and take over the land, they asked help from a squadron of the armed forces to intervene. The squadron has always enjoyed benefits from the Sichuan Province Power Administration Department and maintained good relationships with them. So the military sent armed troops to the area, to expel the Dujianyan City administration people. But, the Dujiangyan people felt they have the support of the local Dujiangyan administrators and did not want to make concessions. At last, the fully armed forces resorted to powerful expulsion and finally expelled the local people. This scene was like criminal underworld organizations fighting with each other. It is difficult to believe that this is happening in the heavily damaged Dujiangyan City area following this earthquake disaster!
(To Be Continued)
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Category: Perspectives
