Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    A DEADLY fire in Shenzhen’s Bao’an District on the early morning of Aug. 29 has renewed public concerns over one of Shenzhen’s stubborn ills: illegal and dangerous structures throughout the fastest-growing city in the world.

    Seven people were killed and four severely injured in the blaze inside a rental apartment at Ma’anshan Community in Shajing Subdistrict in Bao’an District. Initial investigation showed that the fire was caused by an electric bike in the process of being charged.

    As is always the case, the fatal fire occurred at an illegal building. Such structures were built unauthorized, ill-designed, ill-constructed and ill-managed, making themselves hazards for disasters.

    Shenzhen’s glittering image as an internationally renowned metropolis has been tarnished by its “urban villages,” mostly comprised of illegal buildings. Many of them are so close to each other that they are dubbed “kissing buildings” and are virtually inaccessible to fire engines in the event of a fire.

    Illegal buildings are connected with such negative terms as unsanitary conditions, rampant burglary, drug abuse, prostitution, organized crime and even murder. To say nothing of accidents like fires.

    Since 1990, 16 serious fatal accidents have taken place in Shenzhen, of which 12 were fires. In the past 10 years, most fires with heavy casualties have happened at illegal buildings, including one at an agricultural products wholesale market in Guangming New Area on Dec. 11, 2013, in which 16 died and five were injured.

    On Dec. 20, 2015, a “landslide,” triggered by a man-made mountain of dirt, cement chunks and other construction waste, inundated an industrial zone in Guangming, killing 73 and injuring 17. Again, most of the victims were dwellers of illegal apartments.

    As Ma Xingrui, Shenzhen’s Party chief, put it, illegal buildings are a “malignant tumor” for Shenzhen’s urban development.

    The problem is that the “tumor” is getting larger and worse. The official data shows that illegal structures account for 43 percent of Shenzhen’s buildings. About 7.3 million people, roughly half of Shenzhen’s population, live in illegal housing. Ninety-five percent of the illegal buildings have never undergone any inspection or approval for project quality, safety or fire control. In this sense, they are more than a “malignant tumor,” they are a “time bomb” that is ready to go off at any minute.

    It’s been years since Shenzhen authorities vowed to curb the construction of illegal buildings, but little has been achieved. It’s true that it is an issue left over by history, which dates back to the early stage of the development of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in the early 1980s. What we call urban villages today used to be real villages inhabited by real farmers and fishermen. Due to the nature of the property rights of these private houses and the relatively higher costs of compensation for requisitioning and resettling the dwellers, Shenzhen’s early planners and developers steered clear of such residence spots, causing the formation of numerous urban villages.

    Yet historical causes are no excuse for the tolerance of the “tumor,” as the number of the illegal buildings has been on the rise over the years. At least, zero growth in the number of illegal buildings must be achieved. The failure in this task reflects an absence of iron-willed determination to crack the hard nut.

    Zhejiang has set a good example for Shenzhen in this regard. In 2013, the Zhejiang Provincial Government decided to launch a three-year province-wide campaign to transform run-down housing quarters, factory complexes and urban villages and demolish illegal buildings.

    I’m impressed by Zhejiang’s serious attitude toward accomplishing the task. As I’ve been observing, every day for years, the provincial TV station exposes a number of cases of illegal structures ranging from factory buildings to holiday resorts. Almost all the exposed illegal buildings were demolished right away, mostly on the following day.

    Comprehensive measures are called for to get the job done: legislation, organization, execution, media publicity, inspection and assessment, but the first and most important thing is an iron fist.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)