China has denied covering up the death toll from natural disasters, saying the public is well informed about casualties.

"Deaths from natural disasters do not pressure local officials, they are not accountable for them in the way they are when coal mine accidents occur," said Wang Zhenyao, Director of the National Center for Disaster Reduction under the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

He also considered it impossible to cover up casualties, which are the focus of interest from media, relatives of the victims and the public.

"It would be a grievous error if cover-ups delayed disaster assistance and relief efforts," Wang said.

But he admitted that there are still loopholes in announcing disaster figures.

"Inaccurate expressions sometimes let people mistake primary counts for final results," he said.

It takes time to verify statistics. Clogged traffic and inferior communications in disaster-hit areas, plus a rising migrant population, make the task more difficult, he added.

He called on local governments to respond to public demand and further improve the disaster information release system, but also asked for more tolerance about the time needed for verification.

China is facing its most severe natural disasters for six years. By August 15, this year's natural disasters had killed 2,006 people, affected more than 316 million people and caused economic losses of 160 billion yuan (20 billion U.S. dollars).

The disasters had also resulted in 624 people missing and 12.95 million residents being evacuated, and nearly 36 million hectares of farmland have been affected.

A total of 1.53 million houses collapsed during the disasters and more than 4.1 million were destroyed, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

All the figures such as the affected population, death tolls and economic losses were all above the average level of the same periods since 2001, the ministry said.

China no longer regards death tolls from natural disasters and related information as state secrets.

Source: Xinhua