Housing concerns mount for 5 mln China quake refugees

By Lucy Hornby

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.