Year after quake, survivors restart in new homes

Zhong Rong, from Penghua Village of Mianzhu City, was found making traditional pictures for the New Year in his 130-square-meter new house. He told Xinhua half of 100,000 yuan used in building the house was from a charity organization in Shenzhen, a boomtown in southern Guangdong Province.

The Sichuan provincial government said construction had begun on 1.24 million new homes for rural households, or 98.8 percent of the total that needed to rebuild their homes in Sichuan, and construction has been completed on 1 million homes by May 4.

In all the quake-affected regions, up to 95.7 percent of the reconstruction for rural houses had started, 76.6 percent of which had been finished, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner.

However, construction on new homes for urban residents is falling behind those for farmers because of multiple reasons, such as diversified demands among residents in the same building.

Reconstruction of only 40.1 percent of the destroyed urban houses had begun, with 8.9 percent finished, said the planner.