(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-23 07:52

MIANYANG, Sichuan - Ten days after the devastating earthquake in southwest China, six days after he returned to Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao was back on the front lines of quake relief.

Premier Wen Jiabao holds two children in Beichuan during a visit to the quake-stricken areas in Sichuan Province May 14, 2008. [Xinhua]

He flew to Mianyang in Sichuan Province, one of the worst hit cities, on Thursday afternoon. Upon arrival, he conducted a fly-over inspection by helicopter of a "quake lake," which is formed by landslides that block rivers.

People would have found him on the same tight schedule early this year as Wen visited the regions hit by the worst winter weather in 50 years four times in nine days.

The Hong Kong-based daily Ta Kung Pao said in a commentary: "Chinese premiers have developed an image of being caring and conscientious since late Zhou Enlai, the first premier of the People's Republic of China."

Premier Wen Jiabao looks at the damaged Beichuan County to say goodbye before leaving May 22, 2008. The premier started his second visit to the quake-battered zone from Thursday. [Xinhua]

When a 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Xingtai, in the northern Hebei Province in 1966, Zhou rushed to the region and oversaw relief work, risking aftershocks, Du Xiuxian, a photographer of Zhou's era, recalled in his published photographic memoir "The Last Legends."

Wen has inherited that tradition of Chinese premiership.

Two hours after the quake rocked Wenchuan County in the northwestern mountainous region of Sichuan Province, he was in the air.

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