The death toll of the May 12 earthquake which rocked southwestern China's Sichuan Province and neighboring regions stood still at 69,181 as of Sunday noon, the State Council Information Office said.

But the number of the injured rose by 161 to 374,171 and people reported missing increased to 18,522 from Saturday's 17,397, said the office in a statement.

As of Sunday noon, 96,096 injured people were hospitalized and 82,154 have recovered and been charged. There are still 11,306 people remaining in hospitals.

By Sunday, about 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 continued to pour into the quake zone. As of Sunday noon, about 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 had been sent.

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

As of Sunday noon, the government disaster relief fund had reached 54.31 billion yuan (7.87 billion U.S. dollars), including 49.6 billion yuan from the central budget and 4.7 billion yuan from the local budget.

In addition, domestic and foreign donations had reached 46.74 billion yuan in cash and goods by Sunday noon, among which 15.65 billion yuan had been forwarded to the quake-hit areas.

In the 24 hours that ended by Sunday noon, 114 aftershocks were monitored in the quake zone and all of them were below 3.9 magnitude, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

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

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

As of Sunday noon, among the 54 counties which had been cut off power supplies in the earthquake, service had basically resumed in 52 counties, according to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission. Power supplies were still unavailable in 3 towns in Qingchuan and Songpan counties.

(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2008)