Beichuan couples find new love

CHENGDU: Hundreds of people from Beichuan county who lost their spouses in the May 12 earthquake have remarried, the local civil affairs bureau said on Wednesday.

Bureau chief Wang Hongfa said 614 people have remarried. The county lost about 20,000 people in the quake, about 12 percent of its population.

Although there are no figures available for the total number of people who lost spouses in the Sichuan quake, Chen Kefu, spokesman for the provincial civil affairs bureau, said local governments have been encouraging people who lost husbands and wives to try and rebuild their lives with new partners.