China's southwest Sichuan Province suffered 58.3 billion yuan (US$8.3 billion) losses to its transportation sector in the May 12 earthquake, said the Ministry of Transport (MOT) on Wednesday.

The losses were mainly caused by landslide, mudflow, flood and quake lake, said Chen shengying, deputy head of the MOT's road department.

Losses to national and provincial trunk roads hit 24 billion yuan, while that to rural roads and highway came to 28.5 billion yuan and 4 billion yuan, respectively.

A total of 53,295 km of roads suffered damage by July 12, according to earlier statistics from the MOT.

(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2008)