BEIJING, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- It is feared the death toll in the8.0-magnitude earthquake centered in Wenchuan County on May 12 in the southwestern province of Sichuan will top 87,000, an expert said here on Thursday.

    "The death toll for the quake had topped 69,000 by mid July, with another 18,000 missing," Shi Peijun with the National Wenchuan Earthquake Expert Committee told a press conference Thursday morning.

    "Given that it has been three months since the deadly earthquake struck, the hope of survival for those missing is very slim," Shi said.

    More than 87,000 are feared dead combining the two figures together, he said.

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had said on Tuesday that the death toll for the deadly quake had topped 80,000 at a press conference held in Yingxiu, one of the worst-hit township at the epicenter Wenchuan County.

    But a statement issued by the State Council Information Office Thursday afternoon still noted that 69,226 people were killed and 17,923 remained missing.

    In addition, direct economic losses for the May 12 earthquake hit 845.1 billion yuan (about 121 billion U.S. dollars).

    The southwestern province of Sichuan where the quake was centered suffered the most, accounting for 91.3 percent of the total direct economic losses, Shi said.

    Its neighbouring provinces Gansu and Shaanxi accounted for 5.8 and 2.9 percent of the losses, respectively.

    More than 70 percent of the losses came from damaged dwelling buildings, school and hospital facilities and infrastructure such as roads and bridges.

    According to the statement, among the 96,544 who had been hospitalized for injuries, 93,095 have been discharged and 776 were receiving treatment by Thursday noon.

    Government spending on relief and reconstruction had exceeded 67.2 billion yuan (about 9.74 billion U.S. dollars), including 59.82 billion yuan from the central budget and 7.38 billion yuan from the local budget.

    The statement quoted the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying that domestic and foreign donations had reached 59.32 billion yuanin cash and goods by Thursday noon. Of this, 25.51 billion yuan had been forwarded to quake-hit areas.

    About 1.58 million tents, 4.87 million quilts, 14.1 million garments, 3.57 million tonnes of fuel and 7.63 million tonnes of coal had been sent to the quake-hit areas, it said.

    As of Wednesday, relief workers had built 671,700 temporary houses and another 2,400 were being installed.

    The statement said 440,646 tonnes of grain and 11,133 tonnes of edible oil have been allocated to the quake zones from central reserves as of Wednesday.

    So far 194,140 survivors had found jobs outside of the area, while another 804,808 were employed in their home towns.

    Between Monday noon and Thursday noon, 528 aftershocks at or below magnitude 3.9 were monitored in the quake zone, while no aftershock at or above 4.0 magnitude were reported, according to the China Earthquake Administration. A total of 27,784 after shockshad been detected since May 12.