Help at hand, for a price
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A view of the new county seat of Beichuan in Sichuan Province, which finished construction Saturday. The new county seat of Beichuan is China's only autonomous county for the Qiang ethnic minority, and is located about 23 kilometers south of the old county seat. |
The rebuilding of Qushan, a county seat leveled by the devastating earthquake that hit Sichuan Province two years ago, was completed and handed over to the local government Saturday, but many of the victims the project was originally intended to help have expressed skepticism as to whether they will be able to benefit from it.
The new county seat - now called Yongchang township and relocated 23 kilometers south of Qushan - was supported by the Shandong government, and is expected to be able to accommodate 70,000 people by 2020, three times more than the old county seat.
Industrial developments are planned in the new county seat, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
About 160,000 residents from over 20 towns and villages in Sichuan's Beichuan county were affected by the 2008 earthquake.
"I would never have dreamt it would take just two years to build such a magnificient new county seat," said 50-year-old villager He Anchuan.
However, other villagers are less enthusiastic about the new county seat, as they do not believe they will benefit from it. "I only care about when I can move into the new county seat, which remains a big question now," Xia Jiong, a 37-year-old resident, said.
Xia, who has been living in a movable plank house in Yongxing near Mianyang since the earthquake, quit his job in August when he heard that houses in the new county seat would be given to the victims. "However, two months have passed and still no one has told us when we can move in," Xia said, adding that there are rumors residents will have to pay at least 600 yuan ($89) per square meter for a new home.
"Even survival is a problem. How can we afford to buy a new home?" a retiree said, citing the difficulty facing old people trying to get a job.
