A senior earthquake relief official Friday denied suggestions that emergency supplies were being unfairly distributed in earthquake-stricken northwest China.

Miao Chonggang, deputy head of the China Earthquake Administration's quake relief and emergency response department, said at a press conference in Beijing that distribution of relief supplies was being carried out in an orderly manner in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu, in Qinghai Province.

Responding to a journalist's request for a comment on reports that adequate supplies were failing to reach survivors and that bodies were left lying near homes, Miao said relief work was progressing under the leadership of the State Council's quake-relief headquarters in Yushu.

More than 10,000 tents had arrived at the quake zones to provide shelter for those affected, and another 28,000 were en route to the quake zones, Miao said.

But he admitted that difficult road access to the quake zone had complicated the transport of relief supplies, while high altitudes have also made air transport less efficient.

Yushu sits at about 4,000 meters above sea level.

(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2010)