A total of 32 "radioactive sources" had been buried under debris during the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that left up to 71,000 people either dead, buried or missing in one of China's most populous regions, Xinhua news agency said.

According to Zhou Shengxian, minister of environmental protection, 30 of the sources have been recovered and the other two have been located and were awaiting transportation to safe areas, it said.

The report said the radioactive sources were being used for civilian purposes and were "safe and controllable" following the May 12 quake. It did not provide other details about the radioactive sites.

According to the Beijing Times, the environmental protection ministry and the state nuclear safety watchdog issued emergency orders to monitor for radioactive leaks in Sichuan immediately after the earthquake.

No leaks have been discovered as of Tuesday, said the paper, also citing Zhou. All nuclear facilities in Sichuan province have shut down operations, it added.

China's military said on Sunday that all its nuclear facilities in Sichuan were "safe and secure."

French experts at the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) Friday said there were several nuclear installations not used for electricity generation near the epicentre of the quake.

These included a manufacturing site for nuclear weapons which handles unstable chemical elements found in tritium, plutonium and uranium, as well as a nuclear reactor.

China does not have any major nuclear power plants in Sichuan, but the Guangyuan Nuclear Industrial Institute is located only some 225 kilometres (140 miles) from the quake's epicentre.

China's largest plutonium production reactor is reportedly located in Guangyuan.

Photos posted on the institute's website showed damage to several buildings and a rock slide that had buried parts of a building. Students and teachers had been evacuated from buildings and were seen sleeping and living in tents.

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