Rebuilding, Reconstruction Efforts Begin in Quake Hit Western China

With search teams and rescue squads leaving China’s western province hit by the quake, the Chinese town has now turned to rebuilding and reconstruction efforts, and heavy construction machinery and trucks carrying aid to earthquake survivors can be seen clogging up streets, reported AFP.

However, thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks stayed in Jiegu, picked at rubble with shovels and performed funeral rites, they also threw food from the backs of trucks, report said.

Disheveled survivors followed the trucks in large number from their tents and the women scooped bread rolls and packets of instant noodles into the aprons of their traditional fur-lined robes, said report.

Army trucks sprayed water on roads to lessen dust and mobile toilets arrived, with the spread of disease becoming a concern following more than five days without running water, report said.

Besides, class restarted at Yushi No 3 Elementary School and hundreds of students took lessons in classrooms set up in tents, said report.

Most of the students were wearing the blue-and-white school uniforms they put on when their classrooms collapsed on Wednesday, report said.

Nearly 1,706 people were killed and 12,128 injured in the quake. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that at least 66 children and 10 teachers died and that the toll was expected to soar up as more remained missing.

The children trooped into the tents filled with small wooden desks and chairs salvaged from the rubble.

Painful reminders of the disaster were everywhere. Just behind the tent classrooms, hundreds of monks in crimson robes sat on the playground singing sutras, or prayers, for about a dozen earthquake victims whose bodies were stacked in the back of a nearby truck, said report.

Their mournful voices mixed with the sounds of the children reciting their lessons.

The surge in aid came as President Hu Jintao, who cut short an official trip to South America to deal with the disaster, arrived on Sunday to inspect relief work at the remote Tibetan region where residents have frequently chafed under Chinese rule.

He visited displaced families living in tents and promised that the Communist Party and the government was doing everything they could. Tibetan anger over political and religious restrictions and perceived economic exploitation by the majority Han Chinese have sometimes erupted in violence.

Government-issued blue tents that were sparsely dotted around town in recent days could be seen in abundance, with a horse racing track turned refugee camp, the largest of several tent cities in Jiegu, report said.