As of Friday noon, domestic and foreign donations for quake survivors had reached 39.9 billion yuan (about 5.7 billion U.S. dollars), up 2.6 billion yuan from Thursday, according to the Information Office of the State Council.

Of this, 35.28 billion yuan of donations have actually reached and been recorded in account books. Close to 10.7 billion yuan, in cash and relief materials, had been forwarded to the earthquake-affected areas, the office said.

Among the donations, 3.61 billion yuan came through the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), 681 million yuan through the China Charity Federation, 21.46 billion yuan came from provinces and regions outside the disaster zone, 765 million yuan came from overseas and 1.28 billion yuan came from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) showed.

Donations intended for specific townships or cities will be directed as requested, Pang Chenmin, deputy director in charge of disaster relief with the MCA told a press conference Friday.

The MCA will, however, advise donors to designate different programs, if too much money goes into the same program, he said.

Donations made without conditions will be used to pay for tents and temporary housing, quilts, clothes, food, drinking water and other materials needed by survivors.

They would also be used to rebuild facilities in the quake zones, especially civilian dwellings, and pay for maintenance and repairs of damaged buildings, after the reconstruction plan in the quake zones is settled, Pang said.

Jiang Yiman, vice standing president of the RCSC and Liu Guolin, general secretary of the China Charity Federation, both present at the press conference, vowed timely delivery of donations to needy people.

"The Red Cross Society of China will not allow any organization or individual to misappropriate relief goods donated by the public to the quake zones," said Jiang Yiman, adding that the RCSC would not take any management fee from the donation funds.

Liu also pledged that the use of public donations would be supervised by the public and auditing authorities.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2008)