The death toll from the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province and its neighboring region stood at 69,222 as of Thursday noon, the State Council Information Office said in a statement.

The number of people listed as missing and injured reached 18,176 and 374,638 respectively.

As of Thursday noon, a total of 1.48 million quake-affected people had been relocated.

Among the 96,525 hospitalized for injury, 91,923 had been discharged, the statement said.

The government spending on disaster relief and reconstruction had topped 64.39 billion yuan (about US$9.39 billion), including 57.41 billion yuan from the central budget and 6.976 billion yuan from the local budget.

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, domestic and foreign donations had reached 59.26 billion yuan in cash and goods by Monday noon. Of this, 23.81 billion yuan had been forwarded to quake-hit areas.

About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 2.73 million tons of fuel and 5.83 million tons of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

As of Wednesday, relief workers had built 612,400 temporary houses and another 6,700 were being installed, with 39,500 to be built.

In the 72 hours ending Thursday noon, three aftershocks between 4.0 to 4.9 magnitude, one between 6.0 to 6.9 magnitude and 498 aftershocks at or below magnitude 3.9 were monitored in the quake zone, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

A total of 22,521 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

A total of 321,982 tons of grain and 9,401 tons of edible oil have been allocated to the quake zones from central reserves as of Wednesday, the statement said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2008)