By next year, the Beijing municipal government plans to move 14,450 farmers living in 100 villages who are endangered by potential geological disasters.

The farmers and their families make up 5,000 households mainly in the Mentougou District, where many mined-out areas are located and where the biggest chance of mud or rock slides are, Miao Leru, director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of State Land, Resources and Housing said Wednesday.

Miao's administration has just released an overall layout to prevent the adverse effects of geological disasters in Beijing ahead of 2015.

"But details to carry out the plan have not been finally decided yet," he said. A lot of work needs to be done to deal with the resettlement of farmers.

In Mentougou's Qingshui Township, one of the townships often hit by mud slides, more than 100 households will be resettled from four villages, including the Tianheshui Village and Jianchang Village, said Chen Shiji, an official with the township government.

"We are considering offering more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,210) to those want to move to other places by themselves," he said Wednesday.

As for the others, the government will help them relocate, Chen said.

"But it has not been decided where to move them. It is possible that the four villages will be united into a bigger one," he said.

Chen said many villagers do not want to move out from the places where they have lived for a long time, especially senior citizens without children.

"It is difficult to convince them how dangerous it is to live in the villages," he complained.

According to the local land, resources and housing authorities, a total of 1,232 signs of subsidence or caving in, 577 cracks and 84 mountain landslides have been found in areas where mines have operated in the Mentougou and Fangshan districts.

Slides and cave-ins have caused damages to the tune of 200 million yuan (US$24 million) to houses, roads, electric facilities, forests and land, sources said.

Those are not the only two districts affected by geological events. Another seven districts and counties - Miyun, Huairou, Pinggu, Changping, Yanqing, Shunyi and Chaoyang - have also seen their share of damages.

Mud or rock slides are the most destructive geological events in Beijing's mountainous areas.

Since 1949 they have killed more than 500 people and demolished 7,500 houses.

By next year, the government plans to move 5,000 endangered households from 100 villages. Another 4,750 families from 80 villages will likely be moved by 2010, according to the plan.

At the same time, a monitoring network for geological disasters throughout the capital city may be established by 2010.

The whole project is expected to cost 280 million yuan (US$34 million) by 2015, said sources with the administration.

(China Daily March 18, 2004)