The Chinese government has made an immediate start on rescue work for victims of Monday's earthquake in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of northwest China.

Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao has issued written instructions on the disaster relief operations, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs has dispatched a special team headed by vice minister Yang Yanyin to acquire first-hand knowledge of the situation. Yang arrived in Urumqi, capital city of Xinjiang, Monday night and would leave for the quake-hit area on Tuesday.

Red Cross Society (CRCS) of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region dispatched a rescue team to the earthquake-hit Jiashi and Bachu counties Monday afternoon in the wake of the massive earthquake.

The first financial donation in the amount of 250,000 yuan (US$30,230) would be sent promptly to the affected area Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, 2,000 cotton-padded quilts and 1,000 cotton-padded overcoats are ready for delivery, said Rahfu Abbas, vice-chairman of local CRCS in the autonomous region.

The first shipments of relief goods, 1,200 tents and 1,000 cotton quilts, would reach Jiashi and Bachu counties Tuesday. Meanwhile, 6,000 tents, sent from central China's Hubei Province, have already arrived in Urumqi.

The rigid weather in Jiashi and Bachu counties is still freezing cold, with their temperatures plunging below zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) at night, menacing those victims left without shelters.

Despite the local government's prompt and strenuous efforts to provide relief goods, quake victims are still badly in need of shelters, warm cotton quilts and overcoats, said Wang Hong, a local prefectural government official.

Jiashi-Bachu quake-hit area is in an acute shortage of huge quantities of quake relief goods, he noted. Those relief goods in particular need include tents, cotton-padded quilts and overcoats, felt rugs, coal, food as well as medical apparatuses and equipment.

The latest figures from the autonomous regional seismological bureau show that the death toll in the quake has reached 259.

The powerful earthquake magnitude 6.8 on the Richter scale jolted the area at 10:03 a.m. Monday (Beijing Time).

In a seven-year period following 1996, a total of 18 minor quakes magnitude over five on the Richter scale have struck the area, leaving a total of 47 people dead and another 255 others wounded.

Jiashi County, one of the epicenters, in particular, has experienced six major quakes magnitude over 6 in the past decade.

(China.org.cn edited from Xinhua News Agency, February 25, 2003)