Busy Headquarters

It was not the first time that Wen was seen at the front lines when the government was facing a challenge to lead a large part of the country through a disaster.

In 2003, he visited SARS wards when the government was working all out to control the epidemic; earlier this year, he trekked slippery roads to oversee relief work when half of the country struggled through the worst snow and ice storms in 50 years.

People expect Wen's emotional face as well as effective and steadfast actions.

Hours after the quake, a relief task force headed by Wen was pulled together on the plane to Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital.

"Confronted with the disaster, we need composure, confidence, courage and an effective command," he said, promising the country in front of the CCTV cameras that the government will lead the people to win the battle against the earthquake.

Wen made it very clear that the top task was to save lives, and he pressed officials and troops very hard to implement rescue work.

Three hours later, in a tent at Dujiangyan, Wen presided over another meeting of the relief task force. The first thing he ordered was to send rescuers into the isolated epicenter "by all means."

"The earlier, even a minute, we reach the quake-hit areas, the more lives we are able to save," he said.

He ordered that roads be cleared to the epicenter by Tuesday midnight.

The first group of 30 soldiers arrived at the epicenter town Yingxiu on foot on Tuesday afternoon and rescued 300 people by midnight.

More soldiers, doctors, rescue experts, engineers and volunteers were assembled in Sichuan and tons of bottled water, milk, instant noodles and other relief materials were trucked in and airdropped to the quake-hit areas.

From the big issues of restoring traffic flows and allocating troops to tiny things like milk powder for infants, Wen addressed them carefully at relief work meetings.

"The Chinese government acted really fast for disaster relief. It was beyond my expectations," said Tristan Lebraz, a reporter from French TV channel France 2, who covered the quake in Mianyang city in Sichuan.

Pan Guang, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the government's response has been fast.

"It's not realistic to save every victim immediately after the quake, but judging from the speed and scale of the response, China has already created a nation-wide system to counter the disaster," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2008)