China quake death toll rises to 69,188

Source: Xinhua  |   2008-6-28  |     ONLINE EDITION

THE death toll of China's major earthquake increased by two to 69,188 as of this noon, the State Council Information Office said.

The number of the injured increased by three to 374,177 and people reported missing dropped to 18,440 after the 8.0-magnitude quake jolted southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12.

As of Saturday noon, 96,335 injured people had been hospitalized and 84,913 have recovered and left hospital, the office said in a statement.

The relief workers had rescued and evacuated 1,471,534 people in quake-hit areas as of yesterday.

The government disaster relief fund had reached 54.72 billion yuan (about US$7.82 billion), including 49.61 billion yuan from the central government and 5.11 billion yuan from the local budget.

As of this noon, domestic and foreign donations had reached 54.2 billion yuan in cash and goods, of which 19.19 billion yuan had been forwarded to the quake-hit areas.

As of Saturday noon, about 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 1.49 million tonnes of fuel oil and3.19 million coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

As of Friday, relief workers had built 364,000 temporary houses and another 26,600 were being installed, while the materials for 52,000 of such shelters had arrived in the affected areas.

In the 24 hours that ended Saturday noon, 145 aftershocks were monitored in the quake zone. Among the tremors, two measured between 4.0 to 4.9 magnitude on the Richter scale and the others were at or below 3.9 magnitude, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

A total of 14,470 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

Of the 48,275.5 km of water supply pipelines were damaged in the quake, 44,138 km had been repaired.