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CCORDING TO THE
relevant data shown by the
International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR),
more than 1 billion people lives in houses made of
bamboo; the global annual trade volume of bamboo and rattan
is about USD1.4 billion. Bamboo has a long and well-established
tradition as a building material throughout the world’s tropical
and subtropical regions. Even now, bamboo houses are common
in the rural areas of South China, Southeast Asia and Latin
America. Bamboo is widely used for many forms of construction,
in particular for dwelling houses in rural areas. It is a renewable
and versatile resource, characterized by high strength and light
weight, and it can be easily processed by simple tools. Bamboo
constructions are quite easy to build, particularly resistant to
earthquakes and readily repairable after a disaster. With the advan-
tages of flexibility, endurance and light weight, bamboo is quite
suitable for use in building seismic-resistant constructions.
Bamboo houses can provide shelter for earthquake victims
China is a country afflicted severely by earthquake disasters with a
high frequency of occurrences, vast affected territories and grave
losses. Since 1949, earthquakes in China have killed nearly 300,000
people, injured and disabled nearly 1 million people and destroyed
more than 10 million houses. Yunnan Province is located in
Southwest China, a fierce collision zone for the Indian Ocean
tectonic plate and the Europe-Asia tectonic plate. Yunnan Province
frequently suffers severe earthquakes, which often result in grave
loss of life and property. A large number of dwelling houses have
been destroyed and damaged due to earthquakes in Yunnan. Thus,
lots of dwelling houses will be reconstructed or repaired to resettle
victims by local governments in the post-disaster period. Often,
there is insufficient consideration of disaster reduction in recon-
struction projects, due to limited reconstruction funds, and the
newly built houses are probably still vulnerable to earthquakes, espe-
cially in rural areas.
In the aftermath of a severe earthquake, local governments often
find it difficult to provide enough safe shelters to resettle the victims.
The central government might dispatch some tents to local govern-
ments to alleviate this problem, but the transportation of tents takes
a lot of time. Sometimes it is difficult for the tents to reach disaster-
hit areas in time, due to road damage and rugged landforms. Local
governments need an effective and efficient resolution project.
Yunnan Province is a region of undeveloped, ethnic minorities
habitat and also a region prone to earthquakes. Abundant bamboo
resources are distributed in this region, and bamboo is used as a
major building material by local residents, especially ethnic minori-
ties. Bamboo can be used as a better quakeproof material due to its
toughness and light weight. Because of its cheap price and short
growth period, bamboo is widely used to build and reinforce
dwelling houses in earthquake prone areas so as to improve the
earthquake resistance of local dwelling houses.
In order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of local govern-
ment emergency relief systems, the Recovery and Reconstruction
Management Office – the key management unit on the recovery
and reconstruction work at the national level – proposes a research
project aimed at facilitating the development and construction of
bamboo dwelling houses and bamboo shelters in the earthquake-
prone rural areas of Yunnan. This project is funded by the
ProVention Consortium’s programme for Applied Grants for Disaster
Risk Reduction. The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center is respon-
sible for managing the grant and the research progress of project.
Through this project, we will carry out some on-site surveys and
complete a research report, then deliver it to the local governmen-
tal stakeholders and community leaders in earthquake-prone areas
of Yunnan. We will encourage and guide them to build more seismic-
resistant bamboo dwelling houses in the post-disaster reconstruction
period and bamboo shelters in the pre-disaster period as a part of
disaster preparedness efforts, so as to provide victims with enough
safe shelters to protect themselves from the aftershock, and reduce
the loss of life and property to a minimum.
Bamboo houses will benefit earthquake-prone rural areas
in Yunnan
In this research project, the Xishuangbanna region is taken as a
research model area. It is located in the southern part of Yunnan with
a rich bamboo resource and a high frequency of earthquakes. Bamboo
houses (also called pile-supported houses) are the main type of
dwelling houses in Dai People’s village in Xishuangbanna. The
bamboo house, an embodiment of bamboo culture among ethnic
minorities in Yunnan, has distinctive ethnic characteristics and has
recorded the vicissitudes of history and culture. The culture of
bamboo building has survived and thrived through historical changes.
Since the economic prosperity and improved living conditions of
the 1980s, people have wanted better living environments and better
dwelling houses. Some Dai people’s new-built houses have gradu-
ally lost their traditional characteristics – some new houses are
made of iron-cement and bricks, with no traditional bamboo mate-
rials. The quantity of bamboo houses is decreasing. More
importantly, the bamboo house as a traditional culture of ethnic
minorities is gradually declining. But local residents are now begin-
ning to renew the tradition of bamboo houses. The bamboo house
The development of bamboo houses in
earthquake prone rural areas, Yunnan, China
Dr Hongzhou Lai, Recovery and Reconstruction Management Office,
National Disaster Reduction Center of China