Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised China’s post-quake recovery efforts during a visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, saying that it contrasted with Myanmar’s reluctance to allow in aid after a cyclone devastated the country.

Rice was the highest-ranking American to inspect damage from the May 12 quake that devastated a wide swath of southwest China’s mountainous Sichuan province. The magnitude-7.9 temblor killed almost 70,000 people, including thousands of schoolchildren who died when their classrooms crumbled.

She stopped in Dujiangyan, a badly hit city of 250,000, where officials said 3,000 people died and 90 percent of the buildings were now uninhabitable.

“My goodness,” she said as she surveyed a pile of rubble _ once a gym _ before heading to a community of thousands of temporary homes and a water purification facility run by an American charity.

“I can see that the Chinese government and officials have been attentive,” Rice told reporters after the tour. “I can see how much effort has gone into the recovery. But with a disaster of this magnitude, no one can do it alone.”

“We are very glad that the Chinese people have reached out for help,” she added.

Rice said China’s efforts contrasted with that of Myanmar’s ruling junta, which faced worldwide criticism after the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis for failing to speed aid to survivors and initially barring foreign aid workers from the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta.

Two weeks after the cyclone slammed into the area, the reclusive regime authorized the U.N. to use 10 helicopters inside the country.

The government’s official death toll this week reached at more than 84,500.

“It has been sad that ... instead of making possible the international community’s response to their people, that they have put up barriers to that response,” Rice said.

“Many lives could have been saved and many more could still be saved if we can get that response,” she said. “This is not a matter of politics.”

Grieving parents in Dujiangyan, about an hour’s drive from the provincial capital of Chengdu, have unsuccessfully tried to file a lawsuit demanding compensation along with an explanation and apology from the government for the large number of students killed. But officials have refused to accept their papers.

School collapses have become one of the most charged issues in the earthquake recovery process. On the one-month anniversary of the quake, hundreds of parents of children killed in a school in hard-hit Beichuan staged a protest.

On Sunday Rice’s visit went without incident.

At the camp of temporary homes, she spoke to parents of a young boy. “I wish you the very best,” she said. “I’m sorry you lost so much but I know you are going to recover. You have a great spirit.”

The community, one of hundreds that have sprung up across the quake zone, had about 7,000 white-and blue prefabricated homes and officials said the number could grow to about 25,000.

Later Sunday, Rice was to fly to Beijing, where she was set to meet with President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

Their meeting will likely focus heavily on North Korea’s destruction Friday of its nuclear reactor cooling tower at the Yongbyon facility _ the end of the first phase of the regime’s denuclearization process _ and what the next step will be.

So far, the United States and other countries have agreed to give the North the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil for disabling Yongbyon, its main nuclear facility, and providing a list of nuclear programs.

On Thursday, Pyongyang presented a 60-page accounting of its nuclear activities. The declaration triggered an announcement from President Bush that he was moving to ease some sanctions on the North.

North Korea has 45 days to agree on procedures to verify its declaration, and the United States plans to remove the country from a State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism within the same timing.

The next and far more complicated phase of the disarmament process is for the North to abandon and dismantle its nuclear weapons programs. So far, the other countries involved in six-nation negotiations _ China, Japan, South Korea and Russia _ have not said what they will give the North in exchange for doing so.

China is Rice’s last stop on a June 23-30 tour that also took her to Germany, Japan and South Korea.