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In 2011, media reports emerged about the "foster home". Officials from the civil affairs authority persuaded Yuan to send the children to public orphanages.

She put five children in a welfare home in Kaifeng, but kept the rest. "I couldn't bear to see them go," she told Xinhua. "They are all like my own children. Many of them never knew they were abandoned and saw me as their biological mother."

Wu said: "The current situation is directly related to some government departments' failure to supervise and their loose management.

"Those were our faults."

China plans to carry out a monthlong inspection of orphanages run by individuals and private operators, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Sunday.

Lankao county's first social welfare center for children is expected to be built in 2013, according to local officials.

Yuan, asked by a Xinhua reporter whether she would continue her charity work, replied: "Do you think I could watch a child die from cold and hunger out in the street? As long as I'm alive, I will certainly continue to lend a hand."

Xinhua contributed to this story.

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