China has only identified 19,000 victims of earthquake: official

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Two officials commit suicide in China's quake zone: state media
Two officials in southwest China's quake zone have committed suicide, leading psychologists to warn anxiety and overwork may be pushing people there to the limit, state media said Friday. He Zonghua, a 40-year-old employee at a human resources department, leapt from the 15th floor of a hotel building on Wednesday in the city of Mianyang, Sichuan province, the China Daily reported. He had suffered from severe depression, with colleagues saying he complained of insomnia and bad health, according to the Xinhua news agency. Another official hanged himself in his temporary office last month, Xinhua reported. The unnamed official, who lost his 12-year-old son and other relatives in the quake, left a suicide note stating "I feel too much pressure from life and work every day. I cannot hold on any further. And I just want a good rest." The deaths fit a pattern where overwork and emotional stress can push quake zone officials to the limit, psychologist Zhang Wei from West China Medical School of Sichuan University, told Xinhua. The 8.0-magnitude quake that hit Sichuan in May was the worst in a generation, flattening entire towns and leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing.

by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) Nov 21, 2008
Only 19,000 victims of the devastating earthquake that struck China's southwest six months ago have been identified, fewer than a quarter of the total dead or missing, a top official said Friday.

Sichuan Vice Governor Wei Hong told journalists efforts to tabulate the names, addresses and circumstances of the dead and missing victims of the May 12 earthquake was a very complex process and had still not been completed.

"At present we have publicised the names of 19,065 quake victims," he said.

Wei was answering a question on how many students were killed in the earthquake due to school house collapses, a sensitive issue that has left bereaved parents accusing local officials of building unsafe schools.

That number has not yet been publicised.

The magnitude 8.0 quake, the most devastating to strike China in over 30 years, left nearly 88,000 people dead or missing, 375,000 injured, over five million homeless and up to 1.5 million people displaced.

It caused about 124 billion dollars in direct economic losses, while reconstruction costs could exceed 245 billion dollars and take many years, the government has said.

China plans 440 billion dollar investment in quake-hit province
China is to spend nearly 440 billion dollars by 2010 on rebuilding the quake-hit southwestern province of Sichuan and helping it cope with the global economic crisis, an official said Friday.

Total investment in the province, funded by the government, banks and the private sector, will exceed three trillion yuan (438.9 billion dollars) by 2010, said Wei Hong, vice governor of Sichuan.

The cash injection is part of Beijing's plan to expand domestic demand and boost economic growth, Wei told reporters at a briefing in the capital.

Around 1.7 trillion yuan will be used to rebuild the 139 counties hit by the magnitude-8.0 earthquake in May, with investment in other development projects to reach about 500 billion yuan each year, he said.

The investment will be 790 billion yuan for this year and 1.2 trillion yuan next year, he added.

The overall spending will be larger than the total investment over the past 12 years in Sichuan, according to earlier Chinese media reports.

The new three-trillion-yuan plan is markedly more ambitious than earlier plans to spend one trillion yuan in the quake zone over the next three years.

The May 12 earthquake was the worst in a generation in China, flattening entire towns and leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing.

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DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Thousands displaced in Indonesia as quake toll hits six

Buol, Indonesia (AFP) Nov 18, 2008
Six people were killed and some 10,000 displaced by the powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake which struck Indonesia's Sulawesi island this week, officials said Tuesday.

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