Housing concerns mount for 5 mln China quake refugees
GUANGYUAN COUNTY, China (Reuters) - Five million Chinese displaced by last week's earthquake will be in temporary homes for months as devastated Sichuan province shifts from emergency response to housing refugees for the long term.
Local officials say their most pressing issue now is housing.
Leaky tarpaulins and crowded sports stadiums could soon tax the patience of bored and grieving refugees, while a steady diet of instant noodles and cookies is starting to take a toll on health.
"We had 40,000 people living under tarps in Guangyuan last night. But tarps aren't enough in the wind and rain," said Lu Lujun, of the Guangyuan propaganda bureau, as he welcomed journalists at the county checkpoint.
"We need tents, tarps, rice, cooking oil. Oh, and cooking utensils. You can't cook without that."
Neat camps of blue tents are being set up on any flat, open space along the Longmenshan fault, which slashes through the mountains of northeastern Sichuan province. The fault is still delivering regular aftershocks, creating new landslides that keep many towns and villages inaccessible.
Makeshift tarps and woven mats line the mountain roads throughout Guangyuan, where relatively few rural people were killed but nearly every house is uninhabitable.
Soldiers are going up every mountain path to check on inhabitants, but villagers must still walk for hours to the supply depots in towns to take back rice and instant noodles.
Like all of the women gathered in Guanzhuang town, Gao Xiao's wooden home was destroyed by a landslide. She passed three frightening days on a shaking mountainside before coming down to town, but planned to soon go back to dig out her grains stores.
"When I see the People's Liberation Army, I want to cry, even though it was our house that was destroyed," Gao said, eyeing a line of soldiers carrying wrapped tents up from the riverside.
"These boys are so young, they have a mummy too, and here they are going up and down the mountains every day carrying such heavy bags."
BLUE TENT TOWNS
Authorities have built tent compounds in flattened mountain towns along the fault line to keep refugees from flooding the cities, but have cordoned off some of the worst towns near the epicenter for fear that decaying bodies could host disease.
Once aftershocks subside, cities that still have standing buildings will check them for soundness, and likely let people back in some. Leaflets have been handed out, with pictures of structural damage that is too unsalvageable, for the many who will end up making their own decisions on when to move back.
An estimated 90 percent of houses in the immediate disaster area are unsalvageable.
Refugees from the worst-hit towns have come out to stadiums and camps in cities in the plains; while many citizens of those same cities are living under tarps on the sidewalk waiting for the aftershocks to subside and their homes to be declared safe.
Work has already begun on sturdier prefabricated units near Chengdu, the provincial capital, for people with no homes to return to.
For tough Sichuanese used to taking care of themselves, the new homes can't come soon enough.
"We organized a meeting today to ask for better living conditions, like having a kitchen. All our houses have been destroyed, can the government do something? Can we have a more permanent roof over our heads, a kitchen for us to cook in?" said Li Jun, a 35-year-old brigade leader from Laozhan village near devastated Beichuan.
Li's wife and "very intelligent, well-behaved" 11-year old son were killed in the quake.
"I hope to work soon. I can't sit here all day, the stress is enormous, but I need to control myself. I am a village leader, if I break down, the other 40 families will buckle too," he said, near tears.
A steady diet of instant noodles had given him constipation.
"We need a proper home, then at least our physical bodies can recover."
(Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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