Society

Quake-hit town to go French

By Song Wei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-07-12 14:19
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A town badly hit by the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake two years ago will spend one billion yuan ($148 million) to build a French-style romantic town this year, newssc.org reported on Monday.

Quake-hit town to go French
The French-style houses in Bailu town of Pengzhou city, Sichuan province. [Photo/newssc.org] 

Bailu Town in Pengzhou city, Southwest China's Sichuan province, aims to build a AAAA ranked national tourism resort by investing this great sum of money.

It plans to rebuild streets featuring French-style structures beside the Bailu River, a bridge and restore a century-old Catholic abbey that collapsed in the quake. It also includes a wedding-themed park, a vanilla garden and castle hotel to be built around the area.

Vanilla from France, tulips from the Netherlands and flowers form other European countries will be planted to create a "romantic atmosphere", Zhu Yangyu, a local top official said.