Beijing - Six per cent of the nearly 87,000 people confirmed dead or missing in last year's Sichuan earthquake were schoolchildren, according to figures issued by Chinese officials Thursday.

A total of 5,335 schoolchildren died in the quake or were still missing, said Tu Wentao, head of the Sichuan provincial education department.

The figure was the first official total of schoolchildren who died in the 7.9-magnitude quake, which devastated a large area of Sichuan on May 12 last year.

It was released after months of campaigning by bereaved parents to list the children who died amid allegations that many schools where they died collapsed because of poor construction.

Tu said another 546 schoolchildren were left disabled by injuries sustained in the quake.

Huang Mingquan, head of the provincial civil affairs department, said Sichuan recorded 68,712 dead and 17,921 missing after the quake.

According to the two figures given Thursday, the 5,335 children represented 6.2 per cent of the 86,633 people reported dead or missing.

Official statistics for 2006 said about 21 per cent of Sichuan's 87 million people were under 18.

Ai Weiwei, an artist who is campaigning to identify all the children who died in the quake, said the accuracy of Thursday's figures remained unclear.

"The number is not based on a real name list," Ai told the German Press Agency dpa. "It is still just a figure."

"I think they were forced [to release the number] by pressure from civil society and the media," he said.

"They have no choice but to react with this," said Ai, who helped design the iconic "Bird's Nest" stadium for last year's Beijing Olympics.

Ai has identified about 5,200 children who died in the earthquake.

He is naming the children online through his personal blog after recruiting a team of volunteers to interview parents and teachers in Sichuan, but he said local governments had interfered in their six-month investigation.

Amnesty International this week said it found evidence that the government was harassing and denying judicial rights to many parents and other activists who have campaigned for name lists and an inquiry into the collapse of school buildings in the earthquake.

State media on Thursday quoted the provincial education department as saying it needed to rebuild 3,340 schools destroyed in the earthquake. (dpa)