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Spending cut in $10b plan for quake relief
Topic Started: Feb 15 2009, 12:39 PM (53 Views)
Warren
Administrator
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Spending cut in $10b plan for quake relief

From correspondents in Chengdu, China

May 22, 2008 01:44am
Article from: Herald Sun

A woman trapped in a tunnel at a power plant for nine days after China's earthquake was rescued yesterday as the Government ordered budgets to be slashed to free money for relief efforts.

State agencies were told to cut planned spending by 5 per cent this year to create a reconstruction fund of $10.4 billion.

The quake survivor had been trapped in a water diversion tunnel at the Jinhe Hydropower Plant in Hongbai, Sichuan province.

She was flown to a hospital with multiple fractures.

Some signs of normality returned to the quake area as more schools reopened, but a lack of tents underscored the huge task facing the Government in sheltering five million people left homeless.

Vice provincial governor Li Chengyun appealed to other parts of China and other nations to donate tents, saying up to three million were needed.

Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the supply of 250,000 temporary housing units - steel structures used by construction workers - by June 30.

That number should reach one million in three months.

The Government yesterday put the estimated economic loss suffered by state-owned enterprises in the May 12 disaster at $4.5 billion.

Authorities announced they plan to rebuild one of the towns worst hit by the quake, Qushan in Beichuan county, at a new location 20km away.

Not a single building remains safe in the town where 8600 of its 13,000 residents were killed, an official said.

Heavy rain yesterday was likely to interrupt relief efforts and raise the risk of reservoir breaches in earthquake-stricken areas.

Many residents of Chengdu, the provincial capital, spent the night in tents, fearful of buildings collapsing.

Nearly the whole population of Shifang, near Chengdu, slept outside in the rain.

In rural parts, many farmers now live in makeshift shelters.

"We don't know when it will be safe to go back inside our houses, but I don't know how long we can put up with living outside either," farmer Wu Xingyao said under the cover of plastic and tarpaulin.

As the confirmed death toll from the quake passed 41,000, Mr Wen warned of the threat of secondary disasters, ordering experts to inspect dams and reservoirs on 24-hour patrols as more heavy rain was forecast.
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