The vast majority of the rebuilding work in the quake-hit region of southwest China's Sichuan Province had been concluded, a senior official said in Chengdu on Wednesday.

Eighty-five percent of the 29,700 rebuilding projects had been completed, said Liu Qibao, secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, at a symposium.

An 8.0-magnitude earthquake hit Sichuan and the neighboring Gansu and Shaanxi provinces in May 2008, leaving some 87,000 people dead or missing, and Wenchuan County of Sichuan is the epicenter.

Also speaking at the symposium, Wei Yingying, chairperson of the UN Disaster Management Team in China, said that the UN and its affiliated institutions had raised US$80 million for the rebuilding projects.

A quarter of the funds came through the UN Appeal in Support of the Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Early Recovery Program, Wei said.

The symposium has the theme: Experience, Model and Practice of Post-earthquake Rebuilding Based on the Wenchuan Case.

(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2010)