Beijing  - The official death toll in last week's earthquake in south-western China's Sichuan province surpassed 50,000 Thursday, with more than 29,000 still missing, the government said.

As of Thursday morning, 51,151 deaths had been registered from the May 12 earthquake that hit Sichuan and neighbouring regions, the State Council information office said.

The number represented a jump of nearly 9,800 from the previous day's toll.

The office said another 29,328 people remained missing after the magnitude-8 quake and 288,431 were injured.

Domestic and overseas donations for quake victims had reached 21.4 billion yuan (3 billion dollars) by Thursday and 1.9 billion yuan had already been sent to quake-hit areas.

The government relief fund for the quake had reached 13.98 billion yuan, the office said.

The Health Ministry said Sichuan hospitals had treated 68,608 people injured in the quake.

A total of 28,497 were discharged after treatment, 33,665 remained in hospital and 3,444 people died during treatment, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

Meanwhile, workers had restored electricity supplies to most quake-hit areas, but Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas, remained without power, the agency quoted the government's electricity regulator as saying.

Aftershocks had also cut newly restored power lines to Sichuan's Hongyuan area, it said.

According to the US Geological Survey, an aftershock measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale shook the earthquake zone Thursday, the latest of hundreds of aftershocks. (dpa)