JIEGU, China, April 18, 2010 (AFP) - President Hu Jintao travelled to remote quake-hit northwestern China Sunday to inspect relief efforts as rescuers struggled to cope with a disaster that has killed more than 1,400 people.
The Chinese leader, who cut short a trip to Latin America to oversee the emergency response, went to visit victims in Jiegu, the largest city in the shattered region, four days after it was hit by a 6.9-magnitude quake.
Hu on Saturday chaired a meeting of China's top leaders, urging all-out efforts for the quake response, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"As long as we have hope, we will put 100 percent into the rescue work," Miao Chonggang, an emergency official at the China Earthquake Administration, told a news briefing.
More than 6,000 people have been pulled alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings, Miao said. The number of personnel aiding rescue and recovery operations on the Tibetan Plateau had risen to 15,000, he said.
On Jiegu's streets, boxes of bottled water were dropped to help residents cope with water shortages as aid continued to pour in.
Infrastructure in Jiegu suffered major damage in the quake, with the water supply "basically paralysed", Xia Xueping, spokesman for relief efforts, told a news briefing in the town.
Geng Yang, the head of the civil affairs bureau in Qinghai province, told reporters that essential items such as food, drinking water, cold-weather tents, quilts and clothing remained in short supply in the isolated area.
A 20-member Red Cross team from Taiwan was expected to arrive in the quake zone on Sunday, Xinhua reported, to help with surgery and public health work.
Officials have warned of a growing disease threat due to sanitation risks including damage to water supplies that could leave them polluted, although no such outbreaks had yet been reported.
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