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Construction completed on quake-hit Wenchuan schools

By Wang Wei and He Xin (China Daily Sichuan Bureau)
Updated: 2009-09-01 18:07

WENCHUAN: A grand ceremony was held in Wenchuan county, southwest China's Sichuan province Thursday morning to mark the completion of 14 schools and two kindergartens built with financial assistance from Guangdong province.

"The central government attaches great importance to the reconstruction of schools in quake-hit areas. Premier Wen Jiabao said more than 90 percent of the students in the quake zone shall study in permanent schools at the end of this year," Lu Xiaoya, vice-minister of education, said at the ceremony.

Many buildings including schools were damaged or collapsed in the devastating magnitude-8.0 earthquake that jolted Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake, last May.

Guangdong was in charge of the reconstruction of Wenchuan schools with support from the central government. The province built two high schools, 10 rural central primary schools and four kindergartens covering 222,550 square meters with an investment of more than 871 million yuan.

More than 14,000 students from Wenchuan who are studying in different parts of the country or in prefabricated houses in Wenchuan due to the quake will attend the newly completed schools, according to county magistrate Liao Min.

Guangdong governor Huang Huahua considers the construction of the schools and kindergartens a miracle as it took less than one year to finish the mammoth project.