China orders budgets cut to feed $10B relief fund

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Two big tents were set up on basketball courts to serve as a school, but each class met for only an hour because of the lack of space.

"It is different from our school but the teacher is very nice. We don't have homework now so we can play," said Li Hong, whose school farther north in Beichuan was destroyed.

An official said it was important for children to return to their established routines of school and play to help overcome the trauma of loss.

"The most important thing is to return some semblance of normalcy to the kids' lives," said Zhu Jiang, a Chengdu city official who acts as spokesman for the camp.

"We don't want them to feel like they're refugees, but like they've simply moved to another place for a sort of extended holiday," he said.

Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin said the confirmed death toll from the earthquake rose to 41,353 on Wednesday. He told reporters another 32,666 remained missing. Officials expect the final death toll to exceed 50,000.

State-owned companies suffered losses worth $4.29 billion in the disaster, Li Rongrong, chairman of the state body that oversees the enterprises, told reporters in Beijing.

Officials said earlier this week that all companies had been hit with $9.5 billion in losses from the quake.

On the last day of a three-day official mourning period for quake victims, a crowd of some 2,000 people in Beijing's Tiananmen Square who had been chanting "Go China!" grew quiet in a display of mourning at 2:28 p.m., the exact time the May 12 quake rattled central Sichuan province.

After a hiatus during the mourning period, the Olympic torch relay was scheduled to restart on Thursday. Other plans for the games were also going forward.

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