Chinese Officials Sacked Over Handling of Earthquake

China today said 12 officials have been sacked for dereliction of duty in response to last month's earthquake that killed more than 69,000 people.

The supervision minister, Ma Wen, said her department had received 1,178 complaints involving officials' responses to the May 12 quake and had dealt with more than 1,000 of them.

"Administrative punishments" had been handed out to 43 officials, the most serious being removal from office, Ma told a news conference on Monday.

Ma repeated promises to investigate possible corruption in the building of schools, large numbers of which collapsed in the quake. Parents have been demanding to know whether poorly built schools were vulnerable to the earthquake. Thousands of schoolchildren were among the people who died after the massive May earthquake.

She said those found to have violated laws and regulations would be punished, but gave no deadline for the completion of the investigation.

The prime minister, Wen Jiabao, yesterday said life in north-western China's Shaanxi and Gansu provinces should return to normal in two months, and reconstruction should be completed by 2010.Wen said reconstruction in Shaanxi and Gansu should focus on repairing and rebuilding damaged housing in rural areas. More than 1.4m homes in the two provinces were flattened by the quake, affecting millions of local farmers.

The new buildings should be safe, economical, and take up less land, with safety as the top concern, Wen said, adding that schools, hospitals, and other public buildings must meet the highest safety standards.

According to official figures, 69,172 died during or after last month's earthquake, the most powerful to hit China in decades, 374,159 were injured and 17,420 are missing.