[22] Jiegu Town in Yushu suffered the greatest destruction; over 94 percent of buildings were destroyed; the maximum China seismic intensity of IX.

[25] The Qinghai provincial government said in a public statement that five thousand tents, 100,000 thick, cotton coats, and heavy blankets were being sent to help survivors cope with the strong winds and near-freezing temperatures of around 6 °C (43 °F).

[26] The Yushu Batang Airport was re-opened at noon on Wednesday, April 14, and the first flight with personnel and supplies of the China International Earthquake Rescue Team landed there at 8 pm.

"[29] Chinese Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao and State Council premier Wen Jiabao urged all-out efforts to help rescue those affected by the earthquake.

Several hours after news of the quake broke, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu was sent to the region to oversee rescue efforts.

Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Yushu on April 15 to lead rescue work, and postponed his trip to southeast Asia.

At Zhongnanhai, General Secretary Hu Jintao led a minute of silence, alongside the entire Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

[36] Qiang Wei, CCP Party chief of Qinghai, led a large ceremony in Xining; a minute of silence was observed across the entire province, when police sirens and horns sounded.

Zheng believed that a top-down public directive for the country is a reflection that without democracy, a formal Day of Mourning is one of a few ways to show that the leadership is concerned about the welfare of the people.

Yuan Weishi, retired professor at Sun Yat-sen University, disagreed with the assessment that the Day of Mourning should be seen as a political event.

[38] According to television reports filed by Chen Xiaonan of Hong Kong's Phoenix Television, and the Associated Press, thousands of Tibetan monks were active in the search and rescue for quake victims buried in the rubble, and were successful in the retrieving of buried yet still alive victims, as well as the retrieving of dead bodies and the subsequent conducting of traditional Tibetan sky burial or mass cremation.

Due to the great number of ethnic Tibetan victims in the quake, local clergy from monasteries said that the traditional sky burial funeral rites would be too difficult to manage, and that the unsanitary conditions meant that the souls of the departed may not reach heaven.

[41] Reports later surfaced in Western media that groups of monks were also asked to leave the disaster area via telephone by local authorities.

300 Guangdong rescuers were forced to be evacuated into a lower altitude area, and one Chinese reporter was confirmed dead due to pulmonary complications caused by lack of oxygen.

A New York Times editorial wrote that while the death toll was small compared to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, the rapid mobilization and highly organized relief effort "underscored the Communist Party’s determination to rally the nation and transform the disaster into a showcase of its benevolence and resolve", as well as an opportunity to showcase ethnic unity and a "softer side" of the government, who is often seen as being at odds with the Tibetan population.

[50] State-run English newspaper China Daily praised the work of monks in two separate stories,[51][52] while also stressing the re-building of temples in the region.

In addition, bloggers and independent journalists were also allowed to report in the area, although more "sensitive" issues such as ethnic relations and religion face restrictions.