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

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

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

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

The department urged the use of the donation to be transparent and supervised by Party members and the masses, Ouyang said.

Other supervision measures would also be introduced. Authorities of discipline inspection, auditing, quality inspection and work safety would help watch over the reconstruction projects, he said, adding the media was welcome to follow the construction process.

"The reconstruction projects will start to move in a healthy and orderly manner through an all-round way of supervision," he said.

Monitoring measures should be tightened over the reconstruction projects in the quake-affected areas, Ouyang said, adding the evaluation of local leaders' performance would be based on the progress of reconstruction projects.

Those who only seek the speed and scale of the reconstruction and neglect the quality of the projects would be punished according to the relevant regulations and laws, he said.

The vice minister praised the massive number of volunteers, saying they acted as "bridges" and "ties" that bond the CPC and the people.

"The volunteers have helped with donation collection, rescue work, maintaining social order and reconstruction in an active and orderly way."

Foreign assistance teams have played an important role, he added, noting their spirit of devotion, humanitarianism and professionalism have won both the approval of the victims and the government.

"The CPC and the Chinese people hereby express their heartfelt thanks to the support provided by the international community."

Tens of thousands were mobilized to help with the disaster relief work after a devastating earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale rocked Sichuan's Wenchuan County.

(Xinhua News Agency May 27, 2008)