Hu pledges warmth in quake zone

President Hu Jintao wrapped up an airtight two-day inspection tour of quake-ravaged Sichuan province yesterday, showing concern for the survivors and surveying the reconstruction work as winter sets in.

It is the second time Hu visited Sichuan since the May 12 earthquake. His last visit was on May 16, when quake relief work was underway.

The president paid visits to the most-affected areas, including the epicenter in Wenchuan and the counties and townships of Beichuan, Yingxiu and Pingwu. He also inspected relocation sites in the cities of Mianyang, Deyang and Chengdu, and the Aba prefecture.

Hu reassured quake zone residents everything would be OK for the winter.

He told Tian Changgui, a quake victim living in a community of rows of prefabricated houses for 6,500 in Dujiangyan: "The top leadership is very concerned about the people in the quake-affected regions, and worries as to whether you could pull through this winter, and the first New Year after the disaster, safe and sound."

Hu said the government has developed roadmaps for Sichuan's reconstruction, and "although inconveniences persist, they are but temporary difficulties I believe so long as we all strive hard all quake-affected people will have a better living environment".

Hu stopped by a Qiang ethnic village in Pingwu county, a severely affected region where normal traffic did not resume until months after the catastrophe, to visit a local couple who treated him to rice wine they had made for next month's Spring Festival.

The president happily took a sip, and said: "I don't normally drink, but this, I have to drink."

As winter takes hold of the province, as many as 8,400 reconstruction projects are underway in Sichuan, according to China Central Television. Hu asked about the particulars in Hanwang county of Mianzhu, where reconstruction was spearheaded by coastal Jiangsu province's prosperous city of Wuxi, and carefully inspected reconstruction supplies.

He also stopped one of more than two dozen military trucks loaded with bricks headed for Yingxiu county. He clambered onto the truck and asked how many bricks were transported and where.

The magnitude-8.0 quake left more than 69,000 people dead, 374,000 injured, 18,000 missing and millions homeless.