CHINA> Regional
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CHINA> Regional
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Rebuilding takes center stage
By Hu Yinan and Zhang Haizhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-18 08:46
Yang Hong, her husband and their 2-month-old son are early beneficiaries of the troops' efforts. "We moved into this tent earlier this month," the 22-year-old mother said. Her makeshift home, with the words "Only for Disaster Relief" printed on top, lies on a small hillside on the west of the township. "Living conditions here are not bad, except for the summer heat," Yang said, her son wailing in her arms. Her husband lay sleeping in their tent. Asked about food supplies, Yang said it was no longer a problem with the roads reopened. "We get stable food supplies from lorries coming from Chengdu. My husband carries barrels of water from a well down a hill as and when we need them," she said. "There is sufficient milk powder for my son." The real problem, Yang said, was the uncertain future facing her family. "We have no idea what it is going to be like," she said, pointing to the area where her family's farmland lay buried under a landslide. The road ahead for 53-year-old Wang Xueming is much clearer. The migrant worker, who arrived in Yingxiu more than a year before the quake, is finished with the area. Wang's house in Wenjiang county, within the western border of greater Chengdu, survived the quake without any serious injury. Now putting up in the same shelter area as Yang, he cooks fresh meals every day for his co-workers and fellow quake victims. "I won't work here anymore even after everything has passed," he said. "Who knows? I may go to Shenzhen (in Guangdong province), or Shanghai, to find another job as long as the pay is guaranteed," he said. "I can work anywhere, I am still strong." Unlike Wang, many Yingxiu residents have decided to rebuild their lives in the area. Dozens of grocery stores alone have reopened in tents along the Minjiang River. Most hawk daily necessities including soap, toothpaste, instant noodles and bread. |
