The country is racing against time to rebuild homes and set up temporary shelters for many of the 1.2 million people displaced by the Panzhihua earthquake.

A senior civil affairs official Wednesday said reconstruction could begin only in the middle of this month, giving little time before winter sets in.

Pang Chenmin, deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs' disaster relief department, said: "We face a tight schedule to beat the winter cold."

The 6.1-magnitude quake rocked the mountainous Sichuan-Yunnan border region on August 30, killing 38 people and injuring 982. The epicenter of the quake was near Panzhihua city, about 550 km south of the May 12 Wenchuan quake's epicenter.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2008)