国内英语新闻:Lottery raises over 7 billion yuan for China's quake relief

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's welfare lottery has raised over seven billion yuan (about 1 billion U.S. dollar) for the country' s quake-stricken area in its southwest since 2008.

The preliminary count was announced by China's Welfare Lottery Distribution and Management Center on Monday, a few weeks before the deadline for the fund-raising project.

The project was initiated shortly after an 8.0 magnitude earthquake devastated China's southwestern region in May 2008, which left more than 87,000 people dead or missing.

Designed to last for a 30-month period starting on July 1, 2008, the special fund-raising project will conclude on the last day of this month.

This was the second major fund-raising effort dedicated for relief work following natural disasters.

The first one was initiated after disastrous floods along the Yangtze, China' s longest river, in 1998. About 1.5 billion yuan was raised then.

China's welfare lottery started in 1987.