YUSHU - Schools and hospitals have been reconstructed in Northwest China's Yushu prefecture after a devastating earthquake hit the area in 2010.

A total of 44 schools and 53 hospitals have been rebuilt in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Qinghai province, at a cost of 2.8 billion yuan ($448 million), local government said in a statement on Saturday.

The statement was made after the People's Hospital of Yushu prefecture, the last in the project, opened.

By the end of September, construction of all 16,710 residences for farmers and herdsmen in Yushu has been completed. Construction on all the 22,439 houses for urban residents has started, the statement said.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake jolted Yushu on April 14, 2010, taking 2,698 lives and injuring over 12,000 people.