Ministries, state-owned enterprises (SOE) and local authorities have to date sent more than 28,000 Party members to help with quake relief work, according to the Information Office of the State Council here Monday.

The 28,000 members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) were among the 55,000 people dispatched to the quake-battered Sichuan Province and other affected areas by the central government departments, central SOEs and authorities in places not affected by the massive quake on May 12, said Ouyang Song, vice minister of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CPC.

Incomplete statistics show that more than 17,500 vice county magistrates and officials of higher ranking, and more than 2.288 million CPC members across the country are working at quake-devastated zone to help with relief work, he said.

As of midday Monday, the country's CPC members have contributed more than 1.77 billion yuan (about 253 million U.S. dollars) "special Party membership dues" as disaster relief donation, he noted, adding that the Organization Department has allocated 100 million yuan to the disaster areas.

Tens of thousands of people were mobilized to help with disaster relief work after a devastating earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale rocked Wenchuan county of Sichuan on May 12.

(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2008)