Chinese diplomatic personnel and some Chinese business companies based in Myanmar on Friday donated over 6 million Kyats (about US$7,000) for victims in tsunami-hit areas of the country.

The donations of the Chinese Embassy, the Chinese Consulate-General in Mandalay and Chinese companies in Yangon were handed over to the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement (MSWRR).

Chinese ambassador Li Jinjun and Myanmar Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister Major-General Sein Htwa attended the donation ceremony.

Previously, the Chinese government and the Chinese Red Cross Society had respectively donated US$200,000 and US$20,000 in cash to Myanmar for the victims.

According to latest official figures, 64 people were killed, 56 injured and 29 villages destroyed, leaving 3,460 people homeless in Myanmar by aftershocks of a powerful Indian Ocean earthquake which triggered a tsunami on Dec. 26 last year.

(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2005)