BEIJING - President Hu Jintao flew to southwestern China's Sichuan province on Friday to observe rescue and relief work following the devastating earthquake there, official Xinhua news agency said.

The report said Hu would "console the masses and cadres in the disaster zone and visit officers, soldiers and medical personnel on the frontlines of disaster relief and rescue efforts."

Hu's trip comes four days after the 7.9-magnitude quake struck the region, killing 50,000 people, according to official estimates.

Premier Wen Jiabao has been in the region since Monday evening, just hours after the quake, and state media has portrayed him as intimately involved in directing disaster relief operations.

China has mounted a massive effort spearheaded by the military to reach devastated communities isolated by quake damage, with time running out to save survivors buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Earlier Friday, Xinhua quoted Wen as saying the quake had been even more devastating than one in the northern city of Tangshan in 1976 which claimed about 240,000 lives.

Although the toll from the Sichuan quake is not that high, the epic scale of it is becoming clearer -- and the number of dead is rising -- as teams move into the remote epicentre in Sichuan. - AFP/ir

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