Taiwan has started building homes for hundreds of homeless families left by Typhoon Morakot with assistance from the mainland.

Prefabricated houses with blue roof and white walls, donated by the Chinese mainland, are being set up in Pingtung County in the south of the island.

Local authorities told Xinhua on Saturday that so far more than 400 homeless families have applied for the prefab houses, which have been tested safe.

Recovering signs appear in the island as Xinhua reporters saw children in the county studied in a mobile bookstore on rubble, and villages in Kaohsiung County sold homemade handbags to save money for reconstruction.

In addition to the Taiwan authorities' three-year reconstruction budget of about 100 billion New Taiwan Dollars (US$3.12 billion), the Chinese mainland has contributed 781.8 million yuan (US$115 million) two weeks after the disaster hit Taiwan.

The mainland's donation came from all circles of the country, including people in Sichuan Province who received generous support from Taiwan compatriots and Buddhists and monks who pray for blessings of the typhoon victims in the island.

"We will never forget the Taiwan rescuers who helped us live through the Wenchuan earthquake last year," said a worker of Dongfang Steam Turbine Works in Sichuan's Mianzhu City.

The company donated one million yuan to Taiwan victims with another 500,000 yuan raised by the company's workers.

The mainland has promised to spare no effort and offer medical, rescue, engineering and other available personnel or equipment that Taiwan compatriots need.

On Friday afternoon, 18 tonnes of vegetable was shipped to Kinmen from its closest mainland city Xiamen of Fujian Province as an emergent support to ease the vegetable shortage caused by the typhoon.

"We are contacting the agricultural associations in Taiwan and if they request we can quickly collect large amount of vegetable and send them to help Taiwan compatriots," said Guo Hao, a food company boss in Fujian.

Other disaster-relieving materials from the mainland are on the way to the island. The second batch of prefab houses arrived in Kaohsiung on Saturday afternoon and three mainland engineers headed for Taiwan to help install those houses.

The mainland's ports, maritime and transport authorities have provided favorable procedures for the disaster relief materials to Taiwan.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2009)