Premier Wen Jiabao has pledged to save as many lives as the rescue teams can in southwest China's Sichuan Province which was hit by a major quake on Monday afternoon.

Wen made the remarks during his inspections at a hospital and a school in Dujiangyan, a city northwest of the provincial capital Chengdu, partly damaged by the quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale.

The road from Dujiangyan to Wenchuan, epicenter of the quake, was blocked by rock and mud slides, holding up rescue, medical and other disaster relief teams in the city.

"Please just hold on, people are going to get you out of there!” the Premier told the people trapped in the collapsed buildings of the hospital in a loudspeaker.

When comforting patients and medical staffs in the hospital, Wen asked rescuing troops to search every corner for people waiting for salvation and carry out the rescue work in an orderly way.

"If there is a gleam of hope, we will do all the best to save the people," the Premier vowed at a middle school of Juyuan town, adding that the rescuing team would not rest until the last one under the ruin was saved.

"The medical experts are coming, the rescuing planes will land soon," Wen told people crying for help in the school, "I was told many trapped people have hopes to survive from the disaster."

He made a three-time bow to pay his respect to the bodies of the people killed by the quake laid on the school's square, saying that he was very depressed.

Premier Wen told officials at the temporary headquarters for disaster relief in Dujiangyan that roads to Wenchuan should be recovered as soon as possible at all costs.

"The road is the key for the relief work since we can only know the situation there when we can send people and we can only transport the injured out when the road is clean," Wen said.