Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have urged all-out efforts to save lives and provide assistance to people in the area hit by a 7.1-magnitude tremor Wednesday.

In two separate written instructions, Hu and Wen asked authorities to step up precautions to ward off potential risks of aftershocks and make sure people in the disaster-hit area were looked after.

They also called for efforts to safeguard social stability in the quake-devastated region in Qinghai Province.

Vice Premier Hui Liangyu is en route to the region and is expected to visit local people and supervise disaster-relief work.

An estimated 400 people died and 10,000 were injured in the quake.

Many people were still buried under the debris of collapsed houses in the Gyegu Town near the epicenter in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai, said Huang Limin, deputy secretary-general of the prefecture government.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2010)