Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 -- English Window to China News

RECONSTRUCTION in the zones shattered by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12 will give priority to transport facilities, the person drafting the State Council's post-quake reconstruction regulation said yesterday.

"The May 12 earthquake has done great damage to the roads in the quake zones," Cao Kangtai, director of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, told a press conference yesterday afternoon.

"The reason why we give transportation top priority in the post-quake reconstruction regulation is these roads are vital for the reconstruction of other public facilities. They serve as the major means of access for construction materials."

He added reconstruction of power supply facilities would be another focus for the work at hand, while building housing, schools, hospitals and other public facilities would also be addressed.

Cao urged local authorities to monitor the protection of ethnic cultural relics during the relief work and post-quake reconstruction.

"A lot of cultural relics, especially those of China's ethnic groups, were seriously damaged during the quake, for instance, the quake-ravaged Beichuan County, China's only Qiang autonomous county. The Beichuan Qiang Nationality Museum, the only one in the entire country, and its 500-plus exhibits were also destroyed in the earthquake."

Local authorities should follow strictly the State Council's post-quake reconstruction regulations and make efforts to clean, repair and protect cultural relics.

The regulations also echoed the environmental concerns of the government and the public, according to Cao.

The issue is incorporated into seven articles of the 80-article regulations.

"The earthquake has caused serious damage to local environment," he said. "We took environmental protection as a major issue for concern when we were drawing up the regulations to prevent any more damage to the already fragile environment in rebuilding."

Under the regulations, relevant departments should properly arrange the location of temporary housing and their supporting facilities.

Temporary settlements should occupy as little farmland as possible and avoid harming natural reserves, drinking water sources and vulnerable ecological areas.

The death toll from the May 12 disaster rose to 69,159 as of noon yesterday, while 17,469 others were still missing, the State Council Information Office said.