Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday asked rescuers to step up the efforts of searching for survivors, saying "quake relief is still at a critical point."

Rescuers on Wednesday extricated a 35-year-old woman who had been trapped in a tunnel in a hydropower plant construction site for nine days since the May 12 earthquake in southwest China.

"We will never give up once there is the slightest hope," Li said to army rescuers.

Li continued his trip in quake-hit areas in Sichuan on Wednesday, visiting rescuers in Mianzhu City and injured people in Chengdu, the provincial capital.

The vice premier also underlined the importance of providing food, water, clothing and beddings for the victims and precautionary measures to prevent infectious diseases from breaking out.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, arrived in the quake-hit Mianyang City in Sichuan Sunday to oversee disaster relief.

Li had paid visits to Mianyang, Deyang and Dujiangyan cities struck hardest by the quake.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2008)