Quake city needs food, shelter

2008-9-1

PANZHIHUA City in Sichuan Province is now in urgent need of tents, quilts, food and mobile homes after being hit by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake on Saturday.

The city needs mobile homes, 15,000 tents and 60,000 quilts it estimated, Xinmin.cn reported today.

Most of the mobile homes are needed for students for the new semester. As Panzhihua is located in a cold mountain area, large numbers of tents and quilts are needed.

Some areas are also reporting a shortage of food.

The first batch of 300 tents donated by other areas in Sichuan arrived Panzhihua this morning, the report said.

By 8pm yesterday, five people had been killed and 132 injured in the earthquake, which also hit southwest China's Yunnan province.

The earthquake destroyed 99,550 homes and affected at least 200,000 residents with 32,247 having to be evacuated.

The earthquake caused damage worth an estimated 1.4 billion yuan (US$204.4 million).