(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-23 07:36

The State Council Information Office said on Sunday that the death toll from the May 12 earthquake which rocked southwestern China's Sichuan province and neighboring regions, had reached 69,181.

The number of injured rose to 374,171, while the number of people reported missing increased to 18,522 from 17,397 on Saturday, the office said.

As of Sunday, 96,096 injured people were hospitalized; 82,154 people had recovered and been discharged; and 11,306 people remained in hospital.

The statement said that around 1.47 million quake survivors had been rescued and evacuated. Among them, 83,988 were saved from the debris of collapsed buildings in Sichuan province, the statement said.

Relief supplies continue to pour into the quake zone, with around 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 1.31 million tons of fuel oil and 2.8 million tons of coal having been sent.

The statement said that as of Saturday, relief workers had built 280,700 temporary homes and another 37,600 were being constructed, while the materials for 71,100 such dwellings had arrived in the affected areas.

The government disaster relief fund has so far reached 54.31 billion yuan ($7.87 billion), including 49.6 billion yuan ($7.2 billion) from the central budget and 4.7 billion yuan ($683 million) from the local budget.

In addition, 46.74 billion yuan ($6.79 million) had been donated in cash and goods from China and overseas by yesterday noon, among which 15.65 billion yuan ($2.27 billion) had been transported to the quake-hit areas.

Between noon on Saturday and noon yesterday, 114 aftershocks were monitored in the quake zone, all of which were below magnitude-3.9, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

A total of 13,538 aftershocks have been detected since May 12.

Of the 8,426 water plants damaged during the earthquake, 6,482 have been repaired, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

Basic power supplies have been restored to 52 of the 54 counties cut off as a result of the earthquake, according to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission. Three towns in Qingchuan and Songpan counties remain without power.

Quake-hit seminary to rise again

A 100-year-old Catholic seminary destroyed in the May 12 earthquake will be rebuilt on its original site in Sichuan province.

"Experts on ancient buildings from Beijing and Chengdu have started drawing up a reconstruction plan. Original building materials will be used as much as possible to restore the seminary," said an official from the Sichuan cultural relics protection bureau.

The Bailu Upper Academy, the first Catholic seminary in southwest China, was built in 1908 in Bailu Town, in Pengzhou, Sichuan. Most of the seminary was destroyed in the May 12 quake.

Rubble and broken pillars were all that was left. The seminary was previously a three-story building covering 18,000 square meters, but only 2 percent of the building survived the quake, said residents.

The local government set aside a nearby field to store bricks, tiles, fences and other parts of the seminary, and appointed a local Catholic named Tang Min earlier this week to look after the remains.

"Not a single brick can be taken, because they are all cultural relics," said Tang.

Hundreds of places of worship were toppled in Sichuan by the earthquake, and their reconstruction will take a long time, said Yu Xiaoheng, deputy director of the Sichuan provincial bureau of religion.

A total of 83 of the 128 State-level cultural heritage sites were damaged in the quake, including the Dujiangyan UNESCO World Heritage Site.