TEHRAN – Some 126,216 old houses in rural areas have been renovated and retrofitted over the past two years (March 2018- December 2019), Esmaeil Najjar, head of the Disaster Management Organization has announced.

During the Iranian calendar year 1397 (March 2018- March 2019), 61,269 housing units in rural areas have been renovated and by the end of December 2019, 66,947 houses have been retrofitted in the framework of a special plan to improve rural housing, which indicates that about 33 percent of the annual target (200,000 houses) has been achieved, he explained.

The implementation of the plan to renovate and modernize the houses in the villages is done with the participation of the people by providing non-repayable loans, low-interest banking facilities, and long-term repayment, with the aim of increasing resilience to earthquakes, he stated.

Najjar went on to say that before the implementation of the plan, housing units in villages have been vulnerable to quakes measuring less than 3 on Richter scale, IRNA reported on Saturday.

“We suggested a plan to increase the resilience of rural settlements and accelerate the security of these areas, which renovates 500,000 houses per year,” he concluded.

FB/MG