Terrific pics, especially from post #9!
Cant think of any other country that is so impressive in terms of scale in infrastructure development!
The new towns are not on the same site of the earth quake destroyed old ones, so the time to remove the rubbles saved. This rebuilding task is a political task, not a commercial development. The central government give the job to some provincial governments, and the provincial government give to job to the cities under their governing, the designated officials must finish the work good and on time, other wise their political future will be bleak . If the official do the job very good, they add the credits to the higher officials, to the central government, so these officials will be trusted with greater responsibilities, this is the work of dictatorship. All the residential buildings are not for sale, only to resettle the displaced folks, and nobody can play, because this project belong to the dear party( some propaganda you know, under publicity, under the media, too risky for corruption). This kind of works will not happen in the democratic India, will any city in India send a group people with their won money to build a small city in a mountainous remote place you never have nothing to do with it for nothing?