BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- China has completed more than 75 percent of the houses being built to aid residents in disaster-hit regions as of Nov. 15, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said here Tuesday.

Currently, 1,132,800 homes have been built and another 330,800 were under construction to replace those destroyed in a year when China had experienced numerous incidents of abnormal and extreme weather conditions.

The completion rate was 75.33 percent.

Natural disasters had destroyed about 1,272,000 houses and damaged 3,627,000 others around the country as of Nov. 15. About 1,503,800 houses needed reconstruction, ministry statistics revealed.

As of Nov. 15, natural disasters had claimed 1,809 lives and left 293 missing. They had caused economic loss of 182.5 billion yuan (24.6 billion U.S. dollars), according to the ministry.

To date, the central government had allocated 1.107 billion yuan for the reconstruction. Local governments had provided over 100 million yuan.

The ministry urged local governments to ensure that all people in disaster-hit areas would be spending the upcoming Spring Festival, the most important festival, in warm new houses.

(Xinhua News Agency, November 27, 2007)