President calls for all-­out relief efforts(3)

Sixty-one seconds before seismic waves generated by the quake reached Chengdu from Changning, some residents received an early warning. Such early warnings are designed to help provide people with an opportunity to move quickly to safety before being hit, said Chen Huizhong, a senior research fellow at the China Earthquake Administration's Institute of Geophysics.

A man in Yibin surnamed Chen was playing mahjong when the quake struck. He rushed home and brought his wife and daughter to a public square.

"My daughter was very calm and ran down very fast," Chen was quoted as saying by Red Star News. "She and other students had learned in school how to respond to earthquakes.