BEIJING (NEWSnet/AP) — Hundreds of temporary one-room housing units were set up Thursday in northwest China for survivors of an earthquake that destroyed more than 14,000 homes and killed at least 144 people.
The death toll rose by nine as search teams dug through heavy mudslides that had inundated two villages, a city official in Qinghai province said Friday morning. Three people remained missing in the mudslides.
State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of cranes lifting box-like housing units and aligning them in an open field in Meipo. About 260 had been erected, and the total in the village was expected to reach 500 across nine sites by Friday morning.
Arrival of the prefabricated units is a sign that many of the more than 87,000 people resettled after the Dec. 19 earthquake may be homeless for some time. Many have been enduring temperature well below freezing in tent-like units.
An assessment of the houses in a village visited Wednesday by The Associated Press that 90% aren't safe, experts told CCTV in an online report. Some of the homes in Yangwa village appear in good condition, but they have structural damage that make them unsafe, experts said. For those that can be repaired, the work may have to wait until 2024, because the soil is frozen.
The death toll included 113 people in Gansu and another 31 people in neighboring Qinghai. Nearly 1,000 were reported injured. The magnitude 6.2 quake struck in a mountainous region on the Gansu side of the boundary between the two provinces and about 800 miles southwest of Beijing.
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