Vice President Xi Jinping has urged local governments to make quake relief their most urgent of current priorities.

Xi made the remark during his inspection of Baoji City in Shaanxi Province, which sustained some damage from the May 12 quake centered in neighboring Sichuan Province.

Xi called on local officials to make persistent efforts to fight the disaster.

On Wednesday morning, Xi went to the disaster-hit village of Taibai County, where most of the quake survivors had been re-housed in tents.

Meeting the survivors as they crowded around, Xi told the accompanying local officials to answer the survivors' needs with all-out efforts and help them rebuild their homeland soon.

In the downtown area, the vice president urged local officials to keep buildings that were damaged and on the verge of collapse vacant to avoid fresh casualties.

He told local officials there would be much painstaking work for the government to help the quake victims and rebuild their homes after the deadly disaster, which had claimed 41,353 lives as of noon on Wednesday.

(Xinhua News Agency May 21, 2008)