The earthquake that hit China last Monday, killing at least 148 peoplecaused estimated losses of almost 68 million euros in the agriculture and fishing sectorsThe state press reported this Sunday.
Gansu province in northwest China carried out preliminary assessments that showed local agricultural and fishing industries lost 532 million yuan (about 67.7 million euros), according to Chinese state television CCTV.
The authorities were considering how best to use the relief fundcreated by the Chinese central government on Tuesday, for the agricultural sector to resume production as quickly as possible.
The Chinese Government and the Ministry of Emergency Management have allocated 200 million yuan (about 25 million euros) for relief and recovery efforts.
The 6.2 magnitude earthquake shook a mountainous regionone minute before midnight local time on Monday (3:59 p.m., in Lisbon) on the border between the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai and about 1,300 kilometers southwest of Beijingthe Chinese capital.
CCTV reported that 117 people were killed in Gansu and another 31 in neighboring Qinghai, while three people remain missing. Around a thousand people were injured and more than 14 thousand homes were destroyed.
During a visit on Saturday to several villages in Gansu and a county in Qinghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang urged authorities to improve the living conditions of survivors through all available methods.
According to the official Xinhua news agency, Li also said the top priority of the relief efforts was to ensure people stayed warm and safe during the winter.
International broadcaster CCTV CGTN said the first batch of 500 temporary housing units had been built for residents of Meipo, a village in Gansu province, on Friday night.
Many had endured temperatures that could reach -14 degrees Celsius in flimsier, tent-like units with a blue plastic shell on the outside and a cotton-padded lining on the inside.
Funerals were held for the dead, some following the Muslim traditions of much of the population in the affected area.
This was the deadliest earthquake in China since the August 2014 earthquake in Yunnan province, which killed 617 people, but is a far cry from the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province, which caused at least 70,000 deaths.
Source: TSF
