Ya'an Recovers Quickly from Disaster

According to the Ya'an government information office, 45,000 new farmhouses have been completed and another 33,000 have been started.

Reconstruction of 1,099 urban apartments has been completed and another 17,901 urban apartments are being built, said Zhou Quanzhi, deputy chief of the office.

On July 15, 2013, the central government announced a plan for the restoration and reconstruction of the Lushan quake zone, requiring that the reconstruction be completed within three years after the quake.

Sichuan has promoted the use of new building materials such as light steel in building such homes as light steel is considered more resilient in quakes.

Of the 326 households in Yanxi, a village in Yanxi township, Baoxing county, 93 needed their residences rebuilt after the quake.

"Forty-seven households are building residences with light steel frames rather than wood thanks to a promotion that began in late September," said Chen Zongqiang, a 32-year-old villager.

He is putting the final decorative touches on his two-story, 204-sq-m house, which in a month is likely to be the first in the village to be occupied when he moves in with his 62-year-old mother, who has had heart disease for five years, and his 7-year-old son.

His 25-year-old wife, a Tibetan from Daocheng county in the Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Sichuan, left the family without saying goodbye after their wooden house collapsed in the quake.

"We hope my wife will return now that our home has been rebuilt," Chen said in front of his new house, set against a backdrop of high mountains with flowers blooming out front.