China's Ministry of Civil Affairs on Monday allocated a further 10,000 quilts and 10,000 cotton-padded coats to the southwest China's Yunnan to help the people there keep warm in the unusually cold and icy weather.

As of Monday, the ministry had sent 6,000 tents, 130,000 cotton-padded coats and 130,000 quilts to Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, Chongqing municipality and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in China's south.

Latest figures from the ministry showed the freezing weather had left two people dead and forced the evacuation of 233,000 people from their homes in south China, resulting in direct economic losses of 7.7 billion yuan (US$1.17 billion) as of Friday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2011)