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President Hu Jintao leaves Brazil for quake-hit China

AFP

China’s President Hu Jintao waves as he arrives for the BRIC summit at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia on 15 April 2010.Reuters/Paulo Whitaker/Brazil

President Hu Jintao left Brazil for China late on Thursday, after cutting short a Latin America tour to handle the disaster response to a devastating quake at home, Brazilian officials said.

Hu’s hasty departure forced organisers of a summit here involving Brazil, Russia, India and China to bring the event forward a day to Thursday so he could participate before flying out.

An official at the military airbase annexed to Brasilia’s international airport confirmed to AFP that Hu’s plane had left for Beijing.

The quake that hit China’s remote northwest Wednesday killed at least 760 people and left 100,000 people homeless in freezing conditions.

Before leaving Brazil, Hu called the quake “a huge calamity which resulted in big losses of human life.”

Leaders from the other so-called BRIC nations in Brasilia for the meeting offered their support and condolences to Hu and China over the devastating quake.

Copyright © 2010 AFP

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