Special report: Reconstruction After Earthquake    

    BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province stood at 69,197 as of Tuesday noon, the State Council Information Office said in a statement.

    In the 24 hours ended on Tuesday noon, 26 individuals listed as missing had been found. This reduced the number of missing to 18,263. The number of injured stood at 374,176, showing no change since July 2.

    As of Tuesday noon, among the 96,446 hospitalized for injury, 89,545 had been discharged, while 4,251 people remained under care, the statement said.

    Elsewhere, 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 57.5 billion yuan in cash and goods by Tuesday noon. Of this, 21 billion yuan had been forwarded to quake-hit areas.

    About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 2.02 million tons of fuel oil and 4.31 million tons of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

    As of Monday, relief workers had built 504,100 temporary houses and another 21,300 were being installed. Materials for 11,900 of the shelters had arrived in the affected areas.

    In the 24 hours ending at Tuesday noon, 240 aftershocks at or below magnitude 3.9 and one measuring between magnitude 4.0 and 4.9 were monitored in the quake zone, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

    A total of 17,869 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

    Of the 48,276 km of ruptured water pipelines, 44,680 km had been restored as of Tuesday noon, according to the statement.