China is trying to step up its disaster-relief work, with the State Council setting up an emergency command in Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province on Monday, as aftershocks jolted quake-hit areas in southwest China.

Premier Wen Jiabao held a meeting at the emergency command Monday evening with officials from the State Seismological Bureau and Ministry of Civil Affairs to work out plans for disaster relief.

As of 8:00 AM Tuesday, two aftershocks measuring 6 on the Richter scale and 16 aftershocks measuring 5 had been recorded in disaster-hit areas in southwest China following a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province Monday.

The results were released by Chinese organizations of seismological studies, which are doing earthquake monitoring in those areas. To better monitor the aftershocks, a national team of on-spot monitoring and their counterparts in Yunnan, Chongqing, Qinghai, Gansu and Shaanxi were sent to disaster-hit areas.

Two teams for emergency disaster-relief work, with a total of 214 members, flied from Beijing Monday evening to go to Wenchuan. The teams contain 44 seismologists and staffs for emergency aid, 22 medical workers from the hospitals of armed police and 148 specially-trained soldiers for disaster-relief.

(Xinhua News Agency May 13, 2008)