The country's top auditing authority said yesterday that 230 million yuan ($34 million) of reconstruction funds for the 8.0-magnitude Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province had been misused.

The National Audit Office (NAO) announced the results of its audit on 72 major post-quake reconstruction projects and the building of 753 schools and urban and rural houses in 22 counties in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, which were hit hard by the earthquake on May 12, 2008.

According to the NAO, 4,549 auditors tracked reconstruction projects in the three provinces from last June to November and found a number of problems.

An investment holding company in Mianyang, Sichuan, misappropriated the 140 million yuan for the reconstruction of the city's Yong'an Avenue to the construction of the city's Chengnan New District.

Departments in charge of highway construction in Longnan, Gansu, used more than 7 million yuan of reconstruction funds to repay bank loans borrowed before the earthquake and cover daily expenses.

Four departments in Guanghan, Sichuan, used nearly 83 million yuan of subsidies for the reconstruction of urban and rural residences to build low-rent houses and decorate the exterior of buildings in the street.

The problems had been corrected after auditing, the NAO said.

It was the second time the agency had announced its audit of reconstruction projects after the Wenchuan earthquake.