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Tent cities to be set up in Gujarat

Scott McDonald in Bhuj

Gujarat officials, who have come under fire for responding too slowly to last month's devastating earthquake, promised on Monday to set up "tent cities" with their own markets, clinics and schools.

Gujarat authorities estimate that 30,000 people died in India's worst-ever earthquake, which tore apart towns and villages.

On Monday, Defence Minister George Fernandes visited the ruins of Bhuj town and said he doubted whether a final death toll would ever be known.

"I said if my worst fears came through, the number will go up. They are still clearing the debris and still discovering bodies. I don't think we will ever know the final figure," he told reporters.

Last week, Fernandes set off a controversy, saying the death toll from the quake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter Scale, could touch 100,000.

Although a teenager was pulled alive from a well at a village near the flattened town of Bhachau on Saturday, the relief effort is now focused on recovering rotting bodies from the rubble and providing shelter for the homeless.

"We are setting up tent cities for hundreds of thousands who are homeless because of the earthquake. They will have medical facilities, schools, shops, markets," Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya told Reuters in New Delhi by phone.

"We have distributed around 70,000 tents. We need 150,000 tents at least. We would like the whole world to help."

He said the tent cities would be set up in Bhuj and smaller towns of the Kutch district, such as Bhachau, Rapar and Anjaar, which bore the brunt of the quake.

Officials say the government will be using cargo containers as offices as most government buildings have collapsed in the region. Around 50 were being moved into the region.

There have been fears that with access to safe drinking water cut off across the dusty region, there could be an outbreak of diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and cholera as early as this week.

But Gemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said there were no signs of developing epidemics yet.

"So far, in the work we have done, there is no sign of any epidemic," he said. "But if people are living outside in the open and there is no clean water, people's health will suffer."

In shattered towns like Bhuj, as life starts to revive, many survivors are still waiting for the bodies of relatives to be pulled out from mountains of rubble.

"I will wait here till the bodies are found," said Jayantilal Popat, who was squatting beside a collapsed high-rise building where his wife and sons lay buried. "Yes, I know they are dead."

A senior government official, M S Patel, told Reuters in Ahmedabad that rubble in 169 out of the 400-affected villages in the four districts of the region had been cleared.

"We have begun a survey of the 400-affected villages, asking people whether they want to be rehabilitated at the same site of their homes or prefer a new location," he said.

The Complete Coverage | List of earthquake sites

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