The central government has allocated funding of 400 million yuan (US$52.6 million) for reconstruction in the earthquake-hit Ning'er County in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Yunnan governor Qin Guangrong said on Friday.

Together with local government's 230 million yuan (US$30.2 million), all the funds will be mainly used to rebuild schools, residential buildings, hospitals and utilities destroyed by earthquakes.

According to a post-disaster reconstruction plan, people whose houses were destroyed in the quake will move into new residential buildings by early 2008. All the public and infrastructure facilities in the county will be reconstructed and put into operation by the end of 2008.

"Projects in dire need, such as houses, schools and hospitals, must be given top priority," said the governor.

An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale struck the tea-producing Pu'er city and its surrounding area on June 3, with Ning'er County the most severely hit.

Of the 180,000 affected people from Ning'er, only half have been resettled. The rest are still living in tents or public places as their mud-and-brick houses were totally destroyed in the powerful quake.

Amid the quake and aftershocks, more than 90,000 houses collapsed and 270,000 others were damaged, incurring a direct economic loss of 2.5 billion yuan (about US$327 million).

Pu'er City, covering an area of 45,000 sq km, has a population of 2.6 million. A home of the tea of the same name, Pu'er lies near to the border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2007)