The death toll rose to 106 as of 2:00 PM Friday from last Friday's devastating floods and mountain torrents in Shalan Town, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The victims included 102 pupils from the Shalan Central Primary School and four local villagers. Three people are still missing

More than 2,600 soldiers were mobilized for the rescue operation, and the life of 26 pupils was spared while the bodies of six drowned were spotted during the past week.

A truckload of medicine and medical apparatuses and instruments worth 500,000 yuan (about US$60,000), a sum raised by the provincial health department, were sent to the disaster-hit areas on Friday.

The medicine and medical devices were donated by the provincial disease prevention and control center and major hospitals to alleviate the medical materials shortage in Shalan Town.

The Mudanjiang city committee and the stationed armymen and officers donated 100,000 yuan (about US$12,000) and 100,000 yuan worth of materials and goods to the flood affected township.

The surviving pupils resumed classes on Monday in the nearby middle school and the local flood control and disaster relief headquarters said the reconstruction of the demolished primary school will begin next Monday.  

(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2005)