Children play near their new homes at the resettlement site in Lidian village, Lijiadian township of Tongwei county, Gansu province.[Photo by Wu Xiaohui/China Daily]

Since 2016, Tongwei has built 104 such resettlements to relocate 2,765 families with 13,522 people as part of its poverty alleviation efforts and at a total cost of over 800 million yuan, according to local officials.

"We fully respect the will of villagers and guide them to relocate voluntarily," says He Fei, a government official and head of a working group on the poverty alleviation resettlement project in the county. "As to those households who applied to participate in the relocation project, but do not want to move to the designated site, they can build houses at safe sites at their own convenience and enjoy the same benefits of the policy."

According to He, villagers' applications for relocation were voluntarily submitted and carefully evaluated, at village, town and county levels, with the final decision made by the county's development and reform commission.