Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang ordered all possible measures to be taken to rescue victims and minimize deaths and injuries, after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the southwestern Sichuan Province Saturday morning.

Instructions released require obtaining information of the disaster quickly, prioritizing lives and making every possible effort to rescue people.

Rescue work should be done in a scientific way, reducing casualties to a minimum, according to the instructions.

The instructions also urged the strengthening of seismic monitoring, taking concrete steps to prevent secondary disasters, resettling affected people properly and safeguarding social stability of the quake-hit zone.