Premier: Rescue every person(2)

Li also visited Yang Yujie, a 7-year-old boy whose mother and elder sister remained missing after their home was ruined in the quake. The boy's father was hurrying home from his job in another city.

"We should try our best to reduce the rate of disability and mortality," the premier told doctors and nurses in the hospital.

Ling Feng, head of neurosurgery at Beijing's Xuanwu Hospital, was on a business trip to Sichuan's Luzhou city on Saturday and volunteered to help at West China Hospital.

"Premier Li said the nation is grateful to medical experts for helping the injured, and he urged me to take care," he said.

Ling plans to go to disaster-hit areas to rescue the injured.

As of 6 pm on Sunday, West China Hospital had received and treated 213 quake victims.

Li urged local officials to check every house and make the utmost effort to save lives as long as there is one gleam of hope, deploy capable medical personnel to treat and cure the injured, and transfer seriously injured people quickly.

Responding to the call, 20 batches of soldiers conducted the check and set up temporary tents for affected people in open areas on Saturday night.

"The main task tonight is to check every household in remote areas and transfer people who are still in dilapidated houses and build temporary tents for them to protect them from the harm of aftershocks," Liu Jianping, a division chief with Chengdu military garrison, was quoted as saying by China Central Television.

Some survivors in the tents were listening to the latest news about the disaster.

"Is this your tent? Is it OK for you to sleep here tonight?" Li asked them.

"Aftershocks still continue so you cannot return home. Although the conditions here are not good, safety comes first," he said.

Special report: 7.0-magnitude earthquake jolts Ya'an, Sichuan