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Sichuan nearly done with rebuilding quake-hit facilities

Published: 2011-01-20    Views:61 reads

Sichuan Province has finished rebuilding homes, schools and hospitals destroyed during the devastating earthquake in 2008, Governor Jiang Jufeng said at the local parliamentary session Wednesday.

The work took about two years and most of the construction was completed a year ahead of schedule, Jiang said in his work report to the annual session of the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, the local legislature.

He said 96 percent of schools and 90.2 percent of hospitals in the quake-battered cities and counties in the province had been completed by the the end of 2010. Rebuilding of rural and urban homes, on the other hand, was completed in the first half of last year.

Following the 8.0-magnitude earthquake in May 2008, the government launched 2,041 projects to prevent geological disasters in Sichuan Province, he said.

This year, Jiang said, the provincial government would implement measures to better improve the livelihoods of people in the quake-hit areas by creating jobs and ensuring the safety of their homes and public facilities.

The 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Wenchuan, Sichuan Province, and affected neighboring Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, left 87,000 people dead or missing.

According to the figures released by Sichuan's Department of Civil Affairs on January 1, by the end of November 2009, the domestic and overseas donations for the Wenchuan earthquake had reached 4.09 billion yuan ($621 million), with 4 billion yuan ($608 million) having been used.

China's National Audit Office (NAO) assembled an 8,000-strong team in 2008 to monitor the flow of the relief funds.

Some lavish projects sparked a national debate and opponents feared that embezzlement could hurt disaster relief.

A museum under construction in the Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, one of the worst-hit areas in the disaster, will cover 140,000 square meters and cost 230 million yuan ($34.73 million).

Xinhua - Global Times
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7266745.html