Census yields raw material for disaster-relief planning
Several firsts
The census — the first of its kind in China — was designed to help prevent disasters, according to Zheng Guoguang, secretary-general of the National Disaster Reduction Commission.
It was also the first time since 1949(the year the People's Republic of China was founded) that 89 major historical disasters — including earthquakes, floods and forest fires — had been fully investigated.
It was the first time experts had attempted to fully grasp the basic situations of house building and public facilities nationwide via the collection of a huge amount of data, and also the first time fundamental details about flammable materials in forests across the country had been collated.
About 5 million census workers were mobilized nationwide, overcoming the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic in the past three years, said Zheng, who is also executive leader of the census task force at the State Council, China's Cabinet.
Most of the workers came from universities, governments at all levels and third-party investigative institutes, but some were volunteers, he said. Zheng added that the team surveyed nearly 600 million buildings, more than 5 million kilometers of roads, 700,000 public service facilities and nearly 150,000 companies that manufacture or handle hazardous chemicals.
Information about the construction of those facilities — such as building structures, project quality, earthquake-resistance measures and operating procedures — was included in statistics and further analysis.
Yang Saini, a professor of disaster reduction at Beijing Normal University, said the implementation of such a large census demanded a huge number of workers and material resources nationwide, and a strong executive branch.
"There was quite a lot multisector, cross-departmental and transregional coordination, which to some extent could be only achieved in China," said Yang, who is also deputy leader of comprehensive risk assessment at the State Council's census task force.
