Special report: Reconstruction After Earthquake    

    BEIJING, July 18 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from the May 12 earthquake devastating Sichuan and some neighboring provinces remained unchanged at 69,197 as of Friday noon, according to a press release of the State Council Information Office.

    In the 24 hours that ended on Friday noon, 15 persons listed as missing had been found. This reduced the number of missing to 18,222. The number of injured stood at 374,176, showing no change since July 2.

    As of Friday noon, 1.48 million quake-affected people have been relocated to safe places. Among the 96,449 hospitalized for injury,90,268 had been discharged, while 3,528 people remained under care.

    The government disaster relief fund had topped 61.5 billion yuan (about 8.91 billion U.S. dollars), including 55.1 billion yuan from the central budget and 6.4 billion yuan from the local budget.

    According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, domestic and foreign donations had reached 58.1 billion yuan in cash and goods by Friday noon. Of this, 21.7 billion yuan had been forwarded to quake-hit areas.

    About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 2.11 million tonnes of fuel oil and 4.52 million tonnes of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas.

    As of Friday, relief workers had built 531,100 temporary houses and another 15,500 were being installed. Materials for 30,200 of the shelters had arrived in the affected areas.

    As of Friday noon, of the 36,109 kilometers of fiber optic cable damaged by quake, 28,751 kilometers had been repaired. Meanwhile, 44,701 kilometers of water pipes damaged had been repaired, compared with the total of 48,276 kilometers damaged by the quake.

    In the 24 hours ending at Friday noon, 194 aftershocks at or below magnitude 3.9 and two at 4.0-4.9 magnitude were monitored in the quake zone. A total of 18,487 aftershocks had been detected since May 12.

    As of Friday, a total of 256,919 tonnes of grain and 8,856 tonnes of edible oil have been allocated to the quake zones from central reserves.

    As of Friday noon, 131,107 quake-affected people had been organized to work outside of the quake zone, while another 613,586people had found job in their hometown.