Southwest China's quake-hit Sichuan Province will displace 18,000 rural households in the coming three years to avoid geologically-related disasters as part of its post-quake reconstruction efforts, a local official said on Thursday.

Song Guangqi, director of Sichuan Provincial Land and Resources Department, said the province would invest 11.4 billion yuan (US$166 million) in the recovery of the disaster sites -- or sites at risk of geological disasters -- and resident displacement during the three-year period. Four billion yuan will be spent this year.

According to the official, the province would complete the treatment of 2,300 disaster sites and establish a monitoring network for some 3,695 at-risk sites. At-risk sites include landslide-prone areas.

The massive quake, which left more than 80,000 people dead or missing, triggered a large number of secondary disasters such as landslides and rock-mud flows in the province.

Some 8,061 sites with potential geological disasters were found in 39 county-level areas in Sichuan after the quake, threatening the safety of 158,000 households with a population of 640,000 people, and assets worth 30 billion yuan.

The mountainous province will strive to restore the mass monitoring network with the promotion of special devices such as landslide alarms, Song said.

The effects of potential geological disasters triggered by the quake will last for ten years, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2009)