New Beichuan ----Bandengqiao likely site for new Beichuan

ANXIAN COUNTY, Sichuan: A new site is said to have been chosen for Beichuan county's administration, devastated by the May 12 earthquake and the overflow on Tuesday from the Tangjiashan "quake lake".

This photo, taken on Tuesday, shows Beichuan after the controlled draining of the Tangjiashan quake lake. [China Daily]

Experts have submitted a plan to the State Council, local source said.

Bandengqiao, in Changle village of Anxian county to the northwest of Mianyang and about 35 km from Qushan township, is said to be the new site, the sources said.

"Our village meets every criteria as Beichuan's new home," Changle Party chief, Rong Changhong told China Daily.

"It is far from the earthquake belt and any major mountain. It is located close to the Anchang River (the second-largest body of water that runs through Mianyang)."

A view of Bandengqiao, a possible sit for the new Beichuan. [China Daily]

Village director, Zhu Shiyou, said: "We're a model village of Anxian county and the richest in all of Huangtu township - I guess that also helped (in the selection)."

With a registered population of about 2,500, the economy in Changle, a low-lying 5 sq km flatland, relies on farming, cattle breeding, and people who work outside the village.

The place remained relatively intact from the earthquake last month. Six people were killed and only a few houses destroyed.

When plans for reconstruction are confirmed, the village will have to accommodate 30,000 people, as well as Beichuan's unique Qiang culture, to which it is no stranger.

Bandengqiao itself is the home of the Qiang ethnic group, and this will make it easier for Beichuan's large Qiang population to adapt, Li Xiaojiang, head of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, said. He is member of the team that recommended the place.

Beichuan, an autonomous county, is situated among hills 500 to 1,000 m high. More than 8,600 of its 13,000 residents were confirmed dead in the quake. About 70 percent of its buildings were also destroyed, making it impossible to rebuild the county.

Although no further details are available, Li said reconstruction will take three years after the plan's approval.

Beichuan officials welcomed the news at its temporary county government, now in the five-story Tianlong Hotel in Anxian's Anchang Township.

"Bandengqiao is an ideal spot," Zhang Yingfang, deputy head of the Beichuan's advisory committee, said.

"There are few natural disasters in Bandengqiao, where geographic conditions are favorable for economic development and transportation is convenient," she said.

People in Bandengqiao too, are welcoming the survivors of Beichuan.

Wu Yongsheng, a 70-year-old resident who lived with her oldest son's family in a 27-year-old brick house before the quake, and is now staying in a tent, said she hoped the town could be relocated to her village.

"All peasants of the world are family," she said. "It (the relocation) means as simple as sharing some food."

With her tent near three aging temples and hundreds of meters away from the next household in Bandengqiao, Wu lives on selling rape seed from which she makes an average monthly income of 400 to 500 yuan.

"I don't necessarily want to live in the new (Beichuan)," she said. "I still want to work on my own land multi-storey buildings are (okay, but) beyond me. They're too expensive."

Meanwhile, as reconstruction day draws near, citizens of Beichuan are still reluctant to leave their town.

Xu Bin, 42, is one of them. A former factory worker in Wenchuan used to live in Beichuan.

"Wenchuan suffered much less than Beichuan, where the population is a lot more dispersed," Xu said. He is staying in a tent and hopes to soon shift to a mobile home in a resettlement region in Yong'an.

"For safety's sake, I am willing to move (to the new site of Beichuan). Otherwise, I would still prefer to live in my home, where I have spent my whole life," he said.

Xu's wife and two daughters all survived the quake. He said it was the children's education that was worrying him most.

"I'll still likely go elsewhere to work (as a migrant worker), but I don't know where yet. And with nothing left, how can my kids continue to go to school?"

Xu's elder daughter, Xu Juan, will be sitting for the national college entrance exam next year. She was rescued from the debris of her Beichuan Middle School.

Xu's another daughter Xu Yanling, is a fifth-grader in Renjiaping Primary School, where all, except for one student, escaped the quake.

Yanling's principal Shen Jibin wants her students to go to a school in Qingdao, Shandong province.

"We are willing to send Yanling to Qingdao for her studies. With my daughters' education issue settled, I'll be able to put all my efforts into reconstructing my homeland," Xu said.