The death toll from the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province and its neighboring region stood at 69,197 as of Sunday noon, the State Council Information Office said in a statement.

The number of people listed as missing and injured also remains unchanged compared with that of Saturday, standing at 18,222 and 374,176 respectively.

As of Saturday midnight, more than 1.48 million quake-affected people have been relocated.

As of Sunday noon, among the 96,449 hospitalized for injury, 90,396 had been discharged, while 3,400 people remained under care, the statement said.

The government disaster relief fund had topped 61.5 billion yuan (about US$9.04 billion), including 55.1 billion yuan from the central budget and 6.4 billion yuan from the local budget.

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, domestic and foreign donations had reached 58 billion yuan in cash and goods by Sunday noon. Of this, 22.1 billion yuan had been forwarded to quake-hit areas.

About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 2.17 million tons of fuel oil and 4.64 million tons of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

As of Saturday, relief workers had built 541,600 temporary houses and another 14,400 were being installed, with 32,900 to be built.

In the 24 hours ending Sunday noon, 202 aftershocks at or below magnitude 3.9 were monitored in the quake zone, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

A total of 18,892 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

A total of 260,040 tons of grain and 8,980 tons of edible oil have been allocated to the quake zones from central reserves as of Saturday, the statement said.

As of 8:00 AM on Sunday, 136,418 quake-affected people had been organized to work outside of the quake zone, while another 617,593 people had found job in their hometown.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2008)