Relief funds and materials donated by the Chinese mainland to Morakot-stricken Taiwan totaled 300 million yuan (44 million US dollars) by Wednesday night, said Yang Yi, a spokesman of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office Thursday.

The donation included 270 million yuan in money and 30 million yuan worth of relief materials, Yang said.

According to Taiwan's United Daily News, Taiwan's "mainland affairs council", which is in charge of cross-Straits affairs, said Wednesday the mainland had conducted formaldehyde content tests on prefabricated houses destined for Taiwan and they were found to be safe.

Taiwan had conducted further tests and found none of the houses or their fittings had excessive formaldehyde levels, the report said.

The council said the deep concern the mainland had expressed to Taiwan in the wake of the disaster, and the provision of relief funds and materials in a very short time, was greatly appreciated.

Ma Xiaoguang, vice secretary general of the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), said Wednesday that the formaldehyde content of the mobile houses was 0.02 parts per million (ppm), lower than Taiwan's standard of 0.12 ppm, another Taiwan newspaper United Evening News reported Wednesday.

As of as of 12 p.m. Thursday, typhoon Morakot had left 141 people dead and 440 missing, local disaster response authorities said.

Rescue work is still underway at two villages in Kaohsiung where 523 villagers were buried alive by mudslides. No exact casualty figures are available at this time.

More than 24,000 people have been evacuated, and nearly 6,000 people are housed in emergency shelter areas.

According to the island's agriculture department, Morakot has caused 13.45 billion New Taiwan dollars (408.19 million U.S. dollars) of loss in the agriculture sector.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2009)