Over 170,000 people in China's Gansu relocated to safer regions

More than 170,000 people in northwest China's Gansu Province have moved out of areas prone to geological disasters since a relocation project started in 2022, the provincial government said Monday.

Gansu is one of the most ecologically fragile regions in China. Highly ecologically sensitive areas account for 12.14 percent of the province's total land area, while areas prone to geological disasters account for more than half of the total.

Gansu started the relocation project in 2022 that aims to relocate, in stages, a total of more than 1 million people to safer regions, Wang Chi, deputy director of the provincial natural resources department, told a press briefing.

This year, Gansu plans to relocate 152,000 people from more than 40,000 households, said Wang.

The provincial government has taken various measures to improve the lives of relocated people, including building new or upgrading existing rural primary and middle schools, kindergartens, clinics, and elderly-care centers.

Each relocated household can receive a subsidy of 100,000 yuan (about 14,536 U.S. dollars) and a soft loan of up to 50,000 yuan.