Abbazi, a resident of Xinjiang's Urumqi, is contented with his brand-new home, a 50-square-meter structure built with reinforced concrete.

"It's more spacious and solid and will keep the chill off my six-member family in the winter," said the 47-year-old resident of Darji Village in Zhaosu County. His former home was flattened by a catastrophic earthquake in December.

The area was ravaged by tremor measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, leaving 10 persons dead and 34 injured. Most of the homes in region were destroyed in the quake.

Abbazi and his family have been in their new residence for more than a month. His family is among the 23 village households that have been resettled.

"The remaining 31 families are likely to move into their new homes within two weeks," said Alimjan, the village leader. He said that each of the new residences was built under a unified design, using 23,000 bricks, five tons of cement and 475 kilograms of reinforced steel bars.

Under the plan, two households share one courtyard, which covers about a quarter hectare, almost twice the size of the former yards.

"We now have access to electricity for daily life, and tap water will be available pretty soon," said Abbazi. "We can now watch TV programs on six channels, and expect to enjoy cable TV programs in the future."

Most of the houses ruined in last year's quake were simple, indigenous designs based on adobe-and-wooden-pillar construction. Such homes are especially vulnerable to earthquake damage, said Tunh Taan, deputy head of the civil affairs bureau in Zhaosu County.

Based on a careful assessment, government departments decided to rebuild homes for 680 families, and 93 percent of the planned houses have been completed.

The Chinese central government allocated 6 million yuan (US$724,488) for post-quake reconstruction in Zhaosu County. The remaining funds for rebuilding will be provided by local government and residents.

Xinjiang's regional government has launched a 200 million yuan project aiming to reinforce and erect more solid houses for people living in earthquake-prone areas before 2008.

By the end of this year, 600,000 people are expected to move into newly built or reinforced houses, according to the eighth meeting of the sixth Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China, which concluded on Monday.

According to the plan, Xinjiang will build new homes and reinforce existing houses for 400,000 households next year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2004)