China opens schools in quake zone's tent cities

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Near the epicenter at Chengdu's Qingyang district sports center, 9-year-old Gao Luwei played with friends after attending classes in the camp's one-room elementary school.

"I don't know how long we'll be here, but I hope we are here the shortest time possible," said Gao, whose regular school in the resort town of Dujiangyan was damaged in the earthquake that killed more than 41,000 people.

Deng Yaping, four-time Olympic gold medalist in table tennis and an organizer with the Beijing Olympics, was shown on state TV talking to schoolchildren in a classroom in a blue tent in Mianyang, north of the provincial capital, Chengdu.

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.

Li Rongrong said estimated economic loss suffered by state-owned enterprises in the earthquake totaled $4.29 billion. Li chairs the body that overseas state-owned enterprises.

Compounding the misery for the 5 million left homeless in the disaster, rain was forecast for parts of Sichuan province.

The government has already issued an urgent appeal for tents and brought in the first foreign teams of doctors and field hospitals, some of whom were swapping out with overseas search and rescue specialists.

The switch underscored a shift in the response to China's worst disaster in three decades from the emergency stage to recovery operations and for many, enduring hardship.

China has begun moving some of the injured to other provinces for treatment. More than 200 arrived in southern Guangzhou province Wednesday, where local patients gave up their hospital rooms to make space, state TV reported.

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.

The earthquake has evoked an emotional response among the Chinese public, and prompted more than $1.8 billion in donations from organizations and individuals.

The State Council, China's cabinet, said in a statement Wednesday that the country's top anti-corruption office will deal sternly with officials who misuse or delay distribution of relief money. Officials have said they will make public the information on where relief money comes from and where it goes.

After nine days, rescues have slowed. None have been reported since Tuesday afternoon, when a 60-year-old woman was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed temple in the city of Pengzhou more than eight days after the quake, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the Tibetan government-in-exile called for a temporary stop to anti-China protests "to express our solidarity" with quake victims, according to a Tuesday evening statement.

The quake area is near Tibetan parts of China that saw unrest earlier this year when authorities cracked down on anti-government riots.