AUDRA ANG BEICHUAN China said the toll of dead and missing from last week's powerful earthquake jumped to more than 80,000, while the government appealed yesterday for millions of tents to shelter homeless survivors.

The confirmed number of dead rose to 51,151, up almost 10,000 from the day before, Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin said. Another 29,328 people remained missing and nearly 300,000 were hurt in the May 12 quake, he said.

No rescues of buried survivors had been reported in the last 24 hours.

The disaster also left some five million people homeless, levelling buildings and schools in remote towns and villages near the epicentre in Sichuan province. In bigger cities, whole apartment blocks collapsed or are now too dangerous to live in because of damage and worries about aftershocks.

"We need more than 3.3 million tents," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang saidt. He said 400,000 tents have already been delivered to quake victims.

"We hope the international community can give priority in providing tents," he said.

Underscoring the need, President Hu Jintao visited two tent manufacturing firms in eastern Zhejiang province, urging workers to boost production to meet needs from the disaster area.-AP