Relay runners ready to join in quake rescue

JINGGANGSHAN, Jiangxi: Many of the 208 torchbearers in this East China city are getting ready to join the rescue effort in Sichuan province.

The opening ceremony of yesterday's relay was low key with the poignant recitation of a poem written by the late Chairman Mao Zedong in Jinggangshan in 1928, when the revolution reached its critical point.

In the poem, Chairman Mao calls on the revolutionary forces to "join together to make it happen".