China gives temporary shelter to quake victims

Tents set up at a temporary shelter facility. Pic/AP

Hundreds of temporary one-room housing units were being set up Thursday in northwest China for survivors of an earthquake that destroyed more than 14,000 homes and killed at least 135 people, according to state media reports.

Twelve people remained missing in an area hit by mudslides that inundated two villages, the reports said. Search teams were using excavators to dig out a thick sea of mud that covered roads and encased and blocked entry to buildings.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of cranes lifting white, box-like housing units and lining them up in an open field in Meipo, a village in Gansu province. Some 260 had been erected, and the total in the village was expected to reach 500 across nine sites by Friday morning.

The arrival of the prefab units was a sign that many of the more than 87,000 people resettled after the Monday night earthquake may be homeless for some time. Many have been enduring temperatures well below freezing in flimsier tent-like units with blue plastic sheeting on the outside and a quilted cotton lining inside.

14,000
No of homes destroyed by the earthquake