Wenchuan's Communist Party secretary appealed for air drops of tents, food, and medicine.
"We also need medical workers to save the injured people here," Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by phone.
Though slow to release information at first, the government and its state media ramped up quickly.
Added Pressure
Disasters always pose a test for the communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth, and providing relief in emergencies.
Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, with the government already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
"I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy," U.S. President Bush said in a statement.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said no aid requests had been made by China.
The quake was the deadliest since one in 1976 in the city of Tangshan near Beijing that killed 240,000—although some reports say as many as 655,000 perished—the most devastating in modern history. A 1933 quake near where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.
