Beichuan, the worst-hit county in the May 12 earthquake will be rebuilt at a new site in neighboring Anxian county, according to a preliminary plant yet to be approved by government.

The exact location was yet to be decided, but it was likely to be on the flat land of what is currently neighboring Anxian County, 20 kilometers away, said an official with the Sichuan Provincial government.

"Safety is the top priority in selecting a new location and reconstruction," said Beichuan Party chief Song Ming. "We plan to build a monument and a memorial to commemorate the quake victims on the previous location."

County government officials established temporary offices at the five-story Tianlong Hotel in Anchang Township, Anxian County on Wednesday morning.

"The hotel is the temporary office of the Beichuan county government and we will publish our new contact phone number when the phone line is ready," said Ma Yun, head of the county's administrative office.

Beichuan, one of the worst-hit areas in the 8.0-magnitude quake, has its present county seat in Qushan Township, which is surrounded by hills 500 meters to 1,000 meters high. More than 8,600 of the 13,000 people living in the county seat were killed in the quake.

About 70 percent of the buildings in the county seat, 90 kilometers from the epicenter, Wenchuan, were destroyed and "not a single building in the once-prosperous township is safe", said Song.

"It is impossible to rebuild the county seat at the original location or nearby," he said.

Wu Zhenhan, an expert from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences who is investigating damage at Beichuan, called for caution in the selection of the new location.

"We should draw lessons from the tragedy this time, which reminds us of the importance of a full evaluation of disaster risks before the massive reconstruction project," said Wu.

The low-lying original county seat lay directly over a geological fracture zone, where quakes have frequently taken place in previous centuries, and it was encircled by mountains, leaving the buildings at a high risk of landslides, according to Wu.

"The new location should avoid mountainous areas," he said.

The provincial government had finished a draft plan of Beichuan county's reconstruction, including site selection of the new county seat, the reconstruction of the other townships and survivor resettlement, said a provincial government official, who declined to give his name.

"The plan also gives the scale of reconstruction and the budget," said the official, who refused to give details. "Safety is absolutely the top concern of the government."

Beichuan Autonomous County of Qiang Nationality, in northern Sichuan Province, has a population of 160,000 and is under the jurisdiction of Mianyang City.

(Xinhua News Agency May 21, 2008)