Sichuan Province Earthquake

Chengdu. Throughout history the province of Sichuan has been reported as being the "Province of Abundance". This is because the province has been one of the largest agricultural hubs in the entire of China. Sichuan has recently accounted for a large proportion of grain, rice and wheat production for the last decade. Commercial crops include citrus fruits, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, peaches and grapeseed. Sichuan also had the largest output of pork and the second largest production of silkworm cocoons, of all the provinces. Sichuan is also one of the major industrial bases of China.

On the 12th May 2008 an earthquake that measured 7.9 on the Richter scale occurred in Sichuan Province ,the aftershocks from which were detected as far away as Beijing and even Bangkok in Thailand. This caused there to be a total number of 145 confirmed aftershocks that were recorded to be greater than level 4, 23 greater than level 5 and the largest measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale. This made the Sichuan earthquake, the largest since the 1976 Tangshan disaster. There were a total of 68,620 people confirmed to have been killed, 17,445 who were reported missing and 374,142 reported to be injured and nearly five million people were made homeless. The issue of homelessness ws significantly increased due to the Chinese government sending 190,000 tents to Myanmar (Burma) due to its commitment to providing cyclone relief aid, this meant that China was more reliant on foreign aid. This resulted in a huge amount of public donations that came to a total of 877 million yuan or US$125 million. The organisations responsible for estimating the total cost of earthquake damage in the USA, have estimated the total reparations needed to be around US$9.5 billion or 70 Billion yuan. The considerable funding that is needed will be predominantly used in the repairing and reconstruction of infrastructure.