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[quote=MARRIE,297244]
Rice to visit quake-hit Chengdu in China: US

Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to visit quake-hit Chengdu late this month to show sympathy and support for the victims in the region as well as meet Chinese officials and relief workers.

Rice will be the highest-ranking US official to visit the Chengdu, which lies south of the epicenter of the May 12 quake, when she arrives on June 29 during an Asia tour, her deputy spokesman Tom Casey announced Thursday.

She will "look for herself and talk with some of those involved in the relief effort, and again also just do this as a show of sympathy and support for those people that have been affected by this," Casey told reporters.

"I don't have details of the people she'll be meeting with while there, but I think you can look for it to be a range of individuals and not exclusively government officials," he said.

The top US diplomat will "express condolences on behalf of the American people for the earthquake," he added.

The US consulate in the area and the embassy in Beijing have sent people to the quake zone, "but this would certainly be the highest-level US representative there," Casey said.

A State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity that Rice may offer more US aid for the victims of the earthquake. When asked about such possibility, the official replied: "Yes, perhaps."

The United States joined international relief efforts to fly in life-saving supplies to the quake-hit region.

Casey said Rice would leave Chengdu late June 29 for the capital Beijing and talks with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi as well as other senior officials on a range of issues, including North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

Millions of refugees are living in tents and makeshift shelters across quake-hit Sichuan province.

According to the Beijing News, the evacuation of up to 110,000 quake refugees from dangerous mountainous areas threatened by rain-induced landslides in Aba prefecture was slated to have finished Wednesday.

The operation began days ago on the orders of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and included up to 70,000 quake refugees in Aba's Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the May 12, 8.0-magnitude earthquake, reports said.

Up to 87,000 people were reported killed or missing after the massive quake, with as many as five million left homeless.

Rice will visit Chengdu following a visit to Seoul, South Korea, where she will also discuss North Korean nuclear disarmament, Casey said.

Preceding Seoul, Rice will attend a meeting of foreign ministers representing the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial nations in Kyoto, Japan as well as a meeting in Berlin Germany on aiding the Palestinians.
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