China To Open Quake Zone To Tourists

The May 12 quake rocked China`s southwest, killing more than 80,000 people, toppling towns and villages, and turning schools to rubble.

China is opening up buildings ruined in last year's devastating earthquake, including collapsed schools, to tourism, state media said on Wednesday.

The May 12 quake rocked China's southwest, killing more than 80,000 people, toppling towns and villages, and turning schools to rubble even in areas otherwise spared the worst carnage.

Chen Wen, an information officer in the city of Mianyang at the epicentre of the quake, said tourist groups would be able to visit "the ruins of the high schools that were the site of both massive tragedy and huge bravery", the China Daily said.

"In response to the demand, authorities in Mianyang decided to launch a tour programme to take people to see the tragic sites," Chen was quoted as saying.

The one-day tour would include a visit to Beichuan High School, which was destroyed in a landslide. Eighty percent of the buildings in Beichuan were levelled in the quake, and the lower floors of homes and roads in the county seat at the epicentre are still buried in rubble after the surrounding hillsides collapsed.

Visitors will also be able to go boating on the Tangjiashan "quake lake", which had built up behind a mud-and-rock dam, or experience an "earthquake simulation" at a local museum, the newspaper said.