Special report: Reconstruction After Earthquake

    BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of China's major earthquake stood at 69,197 for the forth day in a row as of Friday noon, the State Council Information Office said in a statement.

    The number of the injured also stood at 374,176, showing no change since July 2, while the number of missing dropped by 36 to 18,341 after the 8.0-magnitude quake jolted southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12.

    As of Friday noon, of the 96,445 injured people who had been hospitalized, 88,391 have recovered and left hospital while 5,405 people remained in hospital, the statement said.

    The government disaster relief fund had topped 59 billion yuan (about 8.43 billion U.S. dollars), including 53.7 billion yuan from the central budget and 5.3 billion yuan from the local budget.

    According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, domestic and foreign donations had reached close to 57.1 billion yuan in cash and goods by Friday noon, of which 20.8 billion yuan had been forwarded to the quake-hit areas.

    About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 1.90 million tons of fuel oil and 4.04 million tons of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

    As of Thursday, relief workers had built 465,700 temporary houses and another 25,400 were being installed, while the materials for 46,800 of such shelters had arrived in the affected areas.

    In the 24 hours ending at mid Friday, 192 aftershocks were monitored in the quake zone, all at or below magnitude-3.9, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

    A total of 16,993 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

    Of the 48,276 km of ruptured water supply pipelines, 44,670 km had been restored as of Friday noon, according to the statement.