China Struggles to Shelter 5 Million Homeless

AN XIAN, China-Schools slowly opened Wednesday in some of China's newly formed tent cities, where the government is struggling to shelter many of the 5 million people left homeless in last week's earthquake. The camps, like one at the base of Qianfo mountain in the disaster zone, offer some stability-along with food, medical care and even classes for children-to those whose lives were upended."After the quake, we couldn't sleep for five days. We were really, really afraid," said Chen Shigui, a weathered 55-year-old farmer who climbed for two days with his wife and injured father to reach the camp from their mountain village. "I felt relieved when we got here. It's much safer compared to my home."But there's not enough room to go around.The government issued an urgent appeal Tuesday for tents and brought in the first foreign teams of doctors and field hospitals, some of whom were swapping out with overseas search and rescue specialists.The switch underscored a shift in the response to China's worst disaster in three decades from an emergency stage to one of recovery-and for many, enduring hardship.At Chengdu's Qingyang district sports center, Gao Luwei, 9, played with friends Wednesday after attending classes in the camp's one-room elementary school."I don't know how long we'll be here, but I hope we are here the shortest time possible," said Gao, whose regular school in the resort town of Dujiangyan was damaged in the May 12 earthquake that killed more than 40,000 people.One official said it was important for children to return to their established routines of school and play to help overcome the trauma of loss."The most important thing is to return some semblance of normalcy to the kids' lives," said Zhu Jiang, a Chengdu city official who acts as spokesman for the camp."We don't want them to feel like they're refugees, but like they've simply moved to another place for a sort of extended holiday," Zhu said.Compounding the housing problem, rains were forecast for parts of Sichuan province, including Wenchuan near the epicenter of the quake."Mainly in those hard-hit areas there will be light rains during the daytime. At night, there will be moderate rains in some of those areas," said an official from the Central Meteorological Station. The official refused to give his name.On the second of a three-day national mourning period, the authoritarian government appeared to be moving to rein in the unusually free reporting it allowed in the disaster's first week. Most major newspapers carried near-identical photographs on their front pages of President Hu Jintao and other senior leaders with their heads bowed — a uniformity that is typical when state media censors direct coverage.The May 12 earthquake's confirmed death toll rose to more than 40,000, with at least 10,000 more deaths expected, and officials said more than 32,000 people were missing. The State Council, China's Cabinet, said 80 percent of the bodies found in Sichuan province had been either cremated or buried.Authorities rushed to dispose of corpses, burning them or laying them side by side in pits. Vice Minister for Civil Affairs Jiang Li said officials had begun collecting DNA samples from bodies so their identities could be confirmed later.Rescues — becoming more remarkable by the hour — continued Tuesday, but the trickle of earlier days had slowed to a drip.A 60-year-old woman was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed temple in the city of Pengzhou 195 hours after the quake, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Wang Youqun suffered only a hip fracture and bruises on her face during her eight days in the rubble, Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television reported, citing air force officer Xie Linglong.Jiang said 5 million people were homeless and that the government was setting up temporary housing for victims unable to find shelter with relatives. He said nearly 280,000 tents had been shipped to the area and 700,000 more ordered and that factories were ramping up to meet demand. Sichuan's governor said 3 million tents were needed.In this encampment in An Xian, hundreds of large blue tents dot the flat farmland where rice and barley are being grown. The dried furrows provide orderly markers, lining up the temporary shelters with military precision in the fairly tidy area the size of a football field.
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