Participating in a press conference in Chengdu on May 7, 2009, the officials of Sichuan Province stand in silent tribute to victims and soldiers on rescuing work who lost their lives in a magnitude-8.0 earthquake on May 12 last year, with the province at the epicenter. [Photo: newssc.org]

A total of 5,335 students in Sichuan were dead or missing from the May 12 earthquake, said Tu Wentao, head of the education department of the province at a press conference Thursday morning.

Another 546 students were handicapped in the southwestern province, Tu said.

Thousands of schools collapsed in the southwest China Province in the magnitude 8.0 quake last May. Statistics from the Sichuan provincial education department showed that 3,340 schools needed to be rebuilt after the earthquake.

Sichuan Province has pledged to have 95 percent of the students back in school buildings, rather than tents or prefabricated structures, before the end of this year. All students should be in regular school buildings by next spring.

Huang Mingquan, head of the provincial civil affairs department, said in the same press conference that the death toll from the earthquake, which took place on May 12 last year in Sichuan Province, was 68,712, and another 17,921 people in Sichuan were missing after the disaster.

Earthquake survivors weep to separate with old folks as they prepare to leave for new houses as part of a relocation project in Qingchuan county, southwest China's Sichuan province, Wednesday May 6, 2009. [Xinhua]

The province, epicenter of the quake, has so far received about 15.75 billion yuan (about 2.31 billion U.S. dollars) in quake donations, according to Huang Jinsheng, head of the provincial finance department.

He said that the provincial government has received 9.13 billion yuan, while the rest of the funds were forwarded to prefectures and counties in the province.

The official vowed to strictly monitor the use of the donations and make public the use the donations.

Reconstruction work is progressing.