Mothers wailing over the bodies of their children. Emergency workers scrambling across pancaked buildings. And a grim-faced political leader comforting the stricken and reassuring a worried nation.

While such scenes are a staple of disasters in much of the world, the rescue effort playing nonstop on Chinese television is remarkable for a country that has a history of concealing the scope of natural disasters and then bungling its response.

Since an earthquake flattened a swathe of rural Sichuan province on Monday, killing more than 13,000 people, the Government in Beijing has mounted an aggressive rescue effort, dispatching tens of thousands of troops and promptly sending Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the disaster zone, accompanied by reporters. With a hard hat on his head and a bullhorn in hand, he ducked into the wreckage of a hospital where scores of people were buried and shouted: “Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you.” Throughout the day, the images of Wen directing disaster relief officials and comforting the injured dominated the airwaves.

With images of the calamitous cyclone in Myanmar still fresh — and the military Government’s languid, xenophobic response earning it international scorn — China’s Communist Party leaders are keenly aware that their approach to the earthquake will be closely watched at home and abroad. And after two bruising months of criticism from the West over its handling of Tibetan unrest, the Government can ill afford another round of criticism as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in August.

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