The government of north China's coal-rich Shanxi province is to spend 1.19 billion yuan (US$155 million) this year on areas disfigured by coal mining.

According to a government plan made public recently, the money will be spent on reinforcing houses or building new houses as well supplying drink water to 170,000 rural residents in 201 villages where the land has been scarred by coal mining.

Over the course of 2007, about 30,000 rural households will be relocated and 3,000 refurbished. About 200 wells will be drilled and 1,667 hectares of farmland will be reclaimed, the report said.

As China's biggest coal producer, Shanxi now 676 villages facing geological disasters caused by mining. Five thousand square kilometers of its land has been hollowed out.

The province aims to solve the problems facing all the 676 villages by the end of 2009.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2007)