Public comment period open on draft plan to rebuild quake hit county seat
3/12/2008 17:39
A draft plan for the reconstruction of the seat of Beichuan County, the
worst hit area in the 8.0-magnitude May 12 earthquake,is now open for public
comment.
The new seat of the Beichuan county will be located in Huangtu
township in neighboring Anxian county, the draft plan shows.
The first phase
of construction includes public welfare facilities,government headquarters and
housing.It will cost 19.32 billion yuan (US$2.84 billion).
The seat of the
Beichuan county government was severely damaged in the quake. Officials decided
not to rebuild in the area because it is close to a fault line. Instead the
county's seat will be relocated.
According to the draft plan, it will be
located near four villages -- Shunyi, Dongyu, Hongqi and Wenquan.
The size of
the new county seat will be limited to 10 square kilometers.
When contacted
by the press yesterday, Wang Yuliang, chief of the construction and planning
bureau of the Beichuan County Government, said the draft plan has already been
submitted to the State Council for approval.
There's no word on how long that
could take or how long the public comment period will be open.
Li Huagang,
who is in charge of supporting reconstruction efforts from Shandong Province,
disclosed yesterday, the draft plan is expected to be finalized and published
next February.
In accordance with the draft, the new Beichuan county seat
will be constructed in several stages. The core area will have a population of
61,000.
The earthquake,centered in Sichuan's Wenchuan County, left more than
69,000 people dead and 374,000 injured. Another 18,000 are missing and millions
were left homeless.
Beichuan, a mountainous area in the northern Sichuan
Province, southwest China, is the ancestral home of a Chinese ethnic group of
people known as Qiang. They number 300,000.
The Qiang people have a unique
culture which can be traced to the Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.-1046 B.C.). They
have their own language, cuisine, wine, festivals, clothes, songs and dances.
All of which face extinction as their homes were in the worst hit parts of the
quake zone.
Xinhua
|
