The death toll from last Tuesday's gas explosion in China has climbed to 234.
Villagers from the southwestern municipality of Chongqing where last week's natural gas explosion happened, began returning home today, each given an umbrella apparently to keep off toxic rain.
The cloud of toxic gas swept across a 25 square kilometre area, devastating villages, poisoning farms and forcing the evacuation of more than 64,000 people.
About 1,000 workers cleared away and buried almost 4,000 animals, including cattle, pigs, rabbits, ducks, chickens and dogs, killed by the gas-well burst, Xinhua news agency said.
Rescue workers are still cleaning up a vast area, reffered to as a "death zone", which is littered with bodies of people and animals.
Workers poured hundreds of cubic metres of mud and cement into the 400-metre-deep well plugging the mix of natural gas and sulphurated hydrogen that caused acid burns to the eyes, skin and lungs of victims.
Chinese insurers will pay about 400 million yuan ($48.3 million) to cover the losses, the insurance regulator said today.