Ministries, state-owned enterprises (SOE) and local authorities have to date sent more than 28,000 Party members to help with quake relief work, according to the State Council Information Office Monday.

The 28,000 members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) were among the 55,000 people dispatched to the quake-battered Sichuan Province and other affected areas by the central government departments, central SOEs and authorities in places not affected by the massive quake on May 12, said Ouyang Song, vice minister of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CPC.

Tens of thousands of people were mobilized to help with disaster relief work after a devastating earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale rocked Wenchuan County of Sichuan on May 12.

(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2008)