A day for condolence

The State Department of China announced that August 15 would be a national condolence day for deaths in Zhouqu landslide, this would be the the third time of national condolence for the massive natural disaster.

Zhouqu landslide

The landslide in Zhouqu county, Gansu Province, has caused 1239 deaths and 505 men missing. The recent rain made the rescue become more difficult. The whole town was silted up, which requires a long time to rebuild. As Zhouqu county is an extremely poor place in western China, the local economy recovery will highly depend on state appropriation.

National condolence

To condole the deaths in landslide, the state flag will fly at half staff across the whole country and embassies on August 15. Meanwhile, any public entertainment will be shut down, which also includes online games and online videos. On this day, any online speech to against the condolence will be deleted or angrily criticized in order to show respect for the deaths as a whole nation.

A man-made disaster

Even though the expert said that the landslide was mainly caused by continuous heavy rain. It is still not a real natural disaster. The true reason to cause the landslide is soil erosion, as the result of mass vegetation destruction in upper Bailong river. The town is built in the valley, which is very easy to be threaten by flood and landslide. In 2005, Global Times had posted a article about the serious situation of soil erosion in Zhouqu county, exposing that the local disaster is man-made. After the landslide, this article was ordered to be deleted to cover the truth. The expects have been trying to weak the anthropogenic factor to explain the reason of landslide.

Condolence is not enough

Any question about whether it needs a national condolence will be commented as lack of respect of deaths. But there is few people who think about the lesson in this disaster and how to avoid it. A far more serious issue beyond is how to monitor the local office corruption after they controls the folk domination and state appropriation.