China quake death toll rises by one to 69,181

Source: Xinhua | 06-22-2008 09:17

BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of China's massive earthquake increased by one to 69,181 as of Saturday noon, the State Council Information Office said.

The number of the injured raised by two to 374,010 and people reported missing dropped by one to 17,397 after the 8.0-magnitude quake rocked southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12, said the office in a statement.

By Friday, about 1.45 million quake survivors had been rescued and evacuated.

Relief supplies continued to pour into the quake zone. As of Saturday noon, about 1.57 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1million garments, 1.28 million tonnes of fuel oil and 2.73 million tonnes of coal had been sent.

The statement said as of Friday, relief workers had built 261,000 temporary houses and another 37,700 were being installed, while the materials for 78,200 of such houses had arrived in the affected areas.

As of Saturday noon, the government disaster relief fund had reached 54.31 billion yuan (7.87 billion U.S. dollars), including 49.6 billion yuan from the central budget and 4.7 billion yuan from the local budget.

In addition, domestic and foreign donations had reached 46.74 billion yuan in cash and goods by Saturday noon, among which 15.65billion yuan had been forwarded to the quake-hit areas.

In the 24 hours that ended Saturday noon, 127 aftershocks were monitored in the quake zone and all of them were below 3.9 magnitude, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

A total of 13,424 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

As of Saturday noon, 96,039 injured people were sent to hospital and 81,515 have recovered and left. There are still 11,889 people hospitalized.

As of Saturday noon, the power supply in all 54 counties in China that suffered power cut due to the earthquake have been fully resumed except Qingchuan county in Sichuan Province, part of which still blacked out.

And 42,491.4 km of the 48,275.5 km quake-damaged water pipelines have been repaired, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

Editor:Xiong Qu