The Sichuan earthquake has left 1.4 million farmers in about 4,000 remote villages in absolute poverty, an anti-poverty official said Monday.

The death toll from the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province stood at 69,197 for the sixth day in a row, as of Sunday at noon, the State Council Information Office said in a statement.

China will start repairing culture heritage sits damaged in the May 12 earthquake starting with Dujiangyan, the 2,200-year-old irrigation project in southwestern Sichuan Province.

About 110,000 residents are moving from highly-dangerous terrain in Aba Prefecture of southwest China's Sichuan Province to safe shelters to avoid secondary disasters after the May 12 earthquake.

Authorities in Gansu, one of the provinces worst hit by last month's earthquake, will spare no effort to rebuild people's homes before the winter, its executive governor Feng Jianshen said yesterday.

The death toll of China's massive earthquake remained at 69,170 as of Sunday noon while the number of missing people reduced by one, the State Council Information Office said.

The auditing authority said yesterday that it had uncovered three cases of the illegal use of quake relief funds involving nearly 300,000 yuan ($43,500).

The body of the last victim from a crashed quake relief helicopter in China was found after a 12-day search, military sources said Wednesday.

A senior official said on Tuesday that a "decisive victory" have been achieved in the drainage of China's main quake lake Tangjiashan.

Searchers have found the remains of the missing Chinese helicopter and people on board in the mountains near the quake epicenter town Yingxiu, according to a military source Tuesday.