[By Zhou Tao/Shanghai Daily]

A recent string of high-profile accidents like bridge collapses and the Wenzhou train crash have stoked widespread concern about the safety of public works.

While the authorities are trying very hard to convince the public that they are merely the results of a highly coincidental combination of natural and human factors, and thus are unlikely to repeat, many simply refuse to buy their theory.

People have good reason for skepticism, especially when an age-old problem officials have long vowed to tackle keeps making headlines and undermining what little public trust there is in their ability to act as faithful watchdogs.

This newspaper has covered more than once the quality scandals involving China's affordable housing program. Blatant corner cutting and corruption plague this sector.

Although officials like to portray their investment in social housing as a conscientious move that will make home ownership an attainable goal for millions, past media exposes have shown that many of the prized affordable homes, so shoddily built that they could barely withstand a rainstorm, are in fact a tottering monument to their rotten conscience.

It's deja vu all over again when media reported last month that in Anqing City, Anhui Province, some rural dwellers relocated to one of the city's biggest public housing communities were aghast to find they were practically living in houses of cards.

Since late last year, more than 50 households in the neighborhood, called Long'an Shangmao complex, in Anqing's Taihu County, have spotted cracks in the bearing beams, ceilings and walls of their apartments, some as wide as a finger's breadth. A few punches were enough to bring a pile of debris off the leaky, peeling walls, and much cheaper sand was used in lieu of cement to fill them. Some residents could even make a gaping hole the size of a water basin in their floor slabs with a foot stomp.

Fearing the shaky homes could crumble at any time, residents were forced to live outside, exposed to the elements, while local officials had dragged their feet for over half a year on addressing residents' requests for compensation.

Some observers pointedly argue that the experience of the residents is reflective of the general situation in which former rural dwellers often find themselves after their land is seized by the authorities for commercial developments.