India Sets 3-Month Target to Rebuild
The Indian government set an ambitious three-month target Friday for rebuilding 30,000 homes devastated by the country’s worst earthquake in more than 50 years.
Sharad Pawar, chief minister of the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, said reconstruction will begin in two weeks, with a target completion date of Jan. 26, India’s Republic Day holiday.
“Totally new townships will be constructed on comparatively better sites,” he told journalists in Solapur on the fringes of the quake zone, about 280 miles east of Bombay.
Pawar said the new houses will be made of precast concrete, although some plastic-based prefabricated buildings might be used for schools and other public facilities.
The villages are to be built on more solid rocky sites, away from the soft, rich earth that failed to provide strong foundations when the quake struck Sept. 30, killing 10,000 to 30,000 people, according to various estimates.
The Indian government said Friday that the World Bank has agreed to lend India $300 million to rebuild destroyed villages.
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