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13. 08. 10. - 15:00

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13. 08. 10. - 15:00

Built to be Demolished

This mini town in the middle of a field was put up in less than a month - so the owners could cash in on generous subsidies announced by Chinese government officials for knocking down sub standard buildings.

Chinese officials announced recently that they estimate up to half of the country's existing residential structures will need to be demolished and rebuilt in the next 20 years in part because of poor quality building work - but also because many of the buildings were built without planning permission.

And with generous subsidies available for removing illegal buildings - five brothers decided to enlist the help of friends and relatives to put up these five four storey apartment buildings and houses to cash in on the subsidies.

Local Lu Chen, 48, said: "I noticed they were doing something in the field months ago when a load of lorries and construction vehicles turned up - a couple of weeks later there were these huge apartment blocks and within a month they had roofs on - then the next day they were all gone before anyone had even lived in them."

Planning department officials are now investigating after the Yi family that built the properties applied for the subsidies for their demolition.

A spokesman said: "They have funding to remove five unlicensed buildings covering an area of 5,000 square metres on what should be arable land along the A 122 provincial road in Jurong in Jiangsu province."

The buildings including their roofs were of such poor quality that it took a single digger just under two hours to complete demolish them all.

China annually sees more construction than any other country. In recent years, the nation has had up to 2 billion square metres of development annually. Each year, China uses 40 percent of the world's cement and steel, the main ingredients of the construction industry.

But both experts and industry watchers have questioned the rapid speed of demolition and reconstruction, criticising poor building practices and a lack of consistent urban planning, along with a blind pursuit of economic gain on the part of developers.

In April, Qiu Baoxing, vice-minister of the ministry, said during an industry forum that Chinese buildings can only stand for between 25 and 30 years. In contrast, the average life expectancy of a building in Britain is 132 years and they last around 74 years in the United States.

Poor building quality from developers who flout the regulations including failing to obtain planning permission is a major concern for China that is now tackling the problem.

Only this week a hospital collapsed after the ground it had been built on subsided - and there have been other scandals. In June 2009, a 13-floor newly-constructed building in Shanghai toppled, killing one worker. An investigation revealed its foundations had been undermined by a combination of soil piled 10 metres high on one side and the digging of an underground garage on the other.

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