Russian Timber for Reconstruction of Quake-leveled Houses in Guangyuan

On January 22, a special train carrying timber from Russia and bringing the Russian people’s profound friendship with it, slowly approached the Guangyuan Railway Station. This batch of quality timber came from Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk, and its transportation was made possible with the active assistance from the Sichuan Provincial People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (SIFA), and the full support from Wen Jinhua, chairman of the Russian Association Promoting Peaceful Reunification of China. The timber was specially approved and supplied by the Russian timber district government and was designated to help rebuild the rural houses in the severely earthquake-hit areas of Guangyuan city. The hand-over ceremony was held in Guangyuan. Since the beginning of the winter, the reconstruction in Guangyuan entered a crucial stage, and building materials were badly needed. According to the agreement reached between the Guangyuan government and the Russian side, a total volume of 160,000 cubic metres of quality timber, pinus sylvestris, would be sent to Guangyuan in batches. The arrival of the first batch of 17,000 cubic metres carried by a special train eased to a great extent the shortage for house building timber in the quake-hit areas.

On January 19, Ma Hua, mayor of Guangyuan, Zheng Bei, deputy director of the Sichuan Provincial Development and Reform Committee, and Qin Lin, president of the SIFA, met with Wen Jinhua. Mayor Ma Hua said, as the severely hit areas in Guangyuan had bad geological conditions, proper land for building community residences of brick and concrete was hard to find. Moreover, the construction cost of brick and concrete houses was so high that even with government subsidies many farmers still had big fund gaps. Comparatively, wooden-structure houses occupy less land and need less fund to build, costing about 650 to 700 yuan per square metre, less than half of the cost of brick and concrete houses. They can be used for over 40 to 50 years and are much preferred by local people. With the SIFA acting as the link, Mr. Wen Jinhua was invited to investigate in Guangyuan; at the same time, he gained support from the Russian timber district government and obtained the approval for direct supply of the quality timber. Calculated as 10 to 15 cubic metres of timber for every household, the batch could meet the needs of more than 10,000 households to build wooden-structure farm houses, which is a valuable help to the city’s task of completing 80% of the housing reconstruction by September 2009.

As Mr. Wen Jinhua said, to support the housing reconstruction after the earthquake in Guangyuan, he tried in many ways and finally obtained the specially approved export quota from the timber district government for direct supply of quality timber at favourable price to China. Pinus sylvestris is durable, moistureproof and antiseptic; and with low sugar content it is also pest resistant. To assist the quake-hit areas, the Russian timber workers of the district broke their routine and started logging even when the temperature had dropped to -30oC. They worked overtime in extra shifts and did not rest even on Christmas holidays. The first batch of timber was sent on its way on December 28. As it arrived at the border where it should be transferred to train wagons and go through customs, Mr. Wen Jinhua personally came to the scene and hired workers to unload and load the timber as quickly as possible. It happened to be around the Spring Festival, and the railway goods transportation was extremely tight, so he petitioned help to the Ministry of Railways in Beijing, and the timber special train finally passed through smoothly.

While actively promoting the import of Russian timber, the SIFA, through consultation with the Guangyuan municipal government and Mr. Wen Jinhua decided to build a “Sino-Russian Friendship Community” in the severely quake-hit areas. To help with the post-quake rural housing reconstruction, some well-known architects in China voluntarily designed various layout plans of wooden-structure houses. The SIFA combined obtaining international aid with promoting long-term friendship, and using the “Sino-Russian Friendship Community” as a bridge, pushed the establishment of friendship-city ties between Guangyuan and Russia, so as to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between China and Russia with fruits of friendship.