Onset of flood season adds to quake zone risks

People have dinner at a shelter in rain at a temporary settlement for quake-affected people in Lushan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, April 23, 2013. A rainfall hit Lushan on Tuesday, the fourth day after a 7.0-magnitude jolted the county on April 20. [Photo/Xinhua]

"But we still lack food, drinking water and shelter," said the 57-year-old, adding that the quake destroyed all of the houses in the village and its two wells.

"My family has stored some food, but we cannot get to it because our house was smashed by a huge rock, so I have to borrow grain from relatives," Song said.

Pang Chenmin, deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs' department of disaster relief, told media that the shortage of daily necessities in the hard-hit areas has been eased since roads cleared on Tuesday could be used to transport relief supplies on Wednesday.

He said major temporary resettlement spots and major roads had portable toilets as of Thursday.

Zhong from the Sichuan provincial government said safe drinking water will soon be restored for the 2 million people in the province once the repair work on water plants, pipes and reservoirs is completed.

He said the surface water has not been polluted by the quake, based on the findings of environmentalists and irrigation experts.

Qiu Jian, chief planner with the Sichuan Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said quake-resistant buildings constructed after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake have passed the test of the recent quake in Ya'an.

Those buildings were designed and built to resist a magnitude-8 earthquake.

Although some new buildings suffered varying degrees of damage during the quake in Ya'an, none of their main structures collapsed, Qiu said.

"Buildings that were part of the reconstruction program, especially public buildings where large numbers of people would be, such as schools and hospitals, have protected people's lives," he said.

China decided not to invite international disaster relief forces after the quake given the relatively small area of the earthquake zone, Zhao Ming, director of the China Earthquake Administration's department of emergency response and disaster relief, told China Daily.

After the quake, the government dispatched about 16,000 soldiers and police officers to the area, he said.

《Onset of flood season adds to quake zone risks》永久阅读地址: http://91kudian.com/yingyu/17595/