The death toll from the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province and its neighboring region has remained unchanged and stood at 69,225 as of Monday at noon, according to a statement released by the State Council Information Office.

The number of people listed as missing has fallen to 17,923, while the number of the injured is unchanged at 374,643.

As of Monday noon, a total of 1,486,405 survivors had been relocated.

Among the 96,542 who had been hospitalized for injuries, 92,533 have been discharged, the statement said.

Government spending on relief and reconstruction had exceeded 66.75 billion yuan (about US$9.67 billion), including 59.74 billion yuan from the central budget and 7.01 billion yuan from the local budget.

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, domestic and foreign donations had reached 59.27 billion yuan in cash and goods by Monday noon. Of this, 23.82 billion yuan had been forwarded to quake-hit areas.

About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 3.07 million tonnes of fuel and 6.56 million tonnes of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

As of Sunday, relief workers had built 655,600 temporary houses and another 3,800 were being installed.

Between Thursday noon and Monday noon, two aftershocks between 4.0 and 4.9 magnitude and 777 aftershocks at or below magnitude 3.9 were monitored in the quake zone, according to the China Earthquake Administration. A total of 24,659 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

The statement said 374,340 tonnes of grain and 9,435 tonnes of edible oil have been allocated to the quake zones from central reserves as of Sunday. It also said that 127,904 of the 138,960 businesses damaged had reopened.

As of Monday at noon, 170,412 survivors had found work outside of the area, while another 664,989 found jobs in their home towns.

(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2008)