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Pipeline blast exposes flaws in GDP-driven urban planning
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An oil pipeline blast has killed 55 people in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao and the death toll is likely to rise as nine people are missing and several others are hospitalized with grave injuries.
Leaked oil from a ruptured pipeline operated by Sinopec exploded last Friday, ripped up roads and claimed dozens of lives in seconds.
The pipeline was put into operation in July 1986 to link Dongying City with Huangdao in Qingdao City. It passes underground beneath residences and is, or was, only meters away from public utilities pipeline networks.
As a result, the blasts damaged drainage, gas, water and heating supply pipelines, and the task of repair is daunting.
27-year-mistake
Officials explained the catastrophe as a “27-year-old mistake” waiting to happen, since when the oil pipeline was built, authorities knew little or nothing about future urban development. But they knew the utilities were underground nearby.
Obviously, they were not skilled in planning the route for the 248.5-kilometer-long pipeline.
Otherwise, the disaster could have been avoided, or at least it would not have occurred in a densely populated residential neighborhood.
Even today, it’s hard to say that most of our officials are qualified urban planners, since we see ill-planned public works and other projects everywhere in China, many of which irreparably damage the environment and have the potential to jeopardize living conditions, health and safety.
In a front-page article on Monday, the Xinmin Evening News revealed that some creeks in Shanghai’s suburban areas are heavily polluted, mainly because of wastes discharged by factories in nearby industrial zones, some only meters away from the water.
At almost the same time, an aluminum smelting factory in Pudong New Area’s Chuansha area was reported to have been discharging noxious gas for more than a decade. Downwinders have no choice but to breathe the polluted air.
In addition, the city’s garbage landfill compound and solid waste processing plants are frequently the targets of complaints by nearby residents, complaining of the foul smells. Who is to blame for locating the facilities near residences, or the residences near polluting facilities?
Furthermore, airports and railway stations routinely generate air and noise pollution affecting nearby residential complexes.
It seems that the environment and the public’s interest are not always the top concern of planners and the officials who direct them. Most local authorities everywhere are obsessed by boosting GDP to generate income and enhance their own careers.
Mayor Bulldozer
Promotion of officials has been based for decades largely on economic performance: increasing in GDP. Caring for the environment and for people don’t rate as many points.
These policies and mindset encourage local governments to invest in capital-and energy-intensive industries, despite environmental and human costs.
A typical official of this type is the recently punished former Nanjing Mayor Ji Jianye. Known as “Mayor Bulldozer,” he had a penchant for large construction and infrastructure projects in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province.
One of Ji’s major “achievements” during his tenure in Nanjing was to fell 3,000 of the city’s famous, 70-year-old plane trees planted along avenues.
Wuhan, capital of central Hubei Province, demolished its landmark exhibition hall and shopping center to make space for bigger ones.
The Workers’ Cultural Palace in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, was demolished by explosives on September 7 to make way for a huge public square and underground shopping malls and parking lots. The 70-meter-tall building had been a recreation center since 1982.
Planners remodel our cities’ skylines almost every day, and we hope the change is the better.
The Huangdao blast is a painful lesson that we must learn.
The area that the Sinopec underground oil pipeline passed through was a seemingly ideal location for a prosperous new town, but pipeline planners at the time didn’t change the route, resulting in tragedy 27 years later.
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