China on Tuesday began work on a museum in the southwestern province of Sichuan commemorating a massive May 2008 earthquake in the region that left nearly 87,000 people dead or missing, state media said.

The museum will be located in the new county seat of Beichuan, one of the areas hardest hit by the 8.0-magnitude quake and home to nearly a quarter of the victims, Xinhua news agency reported.

Construction is expected to be completed by May 12, 2011, the third anniversary of the disaster, the report said, citing local officials.

The project is expected to cost 230 million yuan (34.7 million dollars), Xinhua said.

Thousands of students were killed in the Sichuan quake when their schools collapsed on top of them, fuelling angry charges from parents that corruption had led to shoddy construction.

China has invested hundreds of billions of yuan in reconstruction in the quake zone, building at least 1.45 million homes and about 3,000 schools, state media have reported.