BEIJING — The Chinese Communist Party has disciplined 28 officials and promoted 50 as a result of their performances during rescue operations after the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province, the party said yesterday.

The personnel changes, including the firing of 15 officials for “doing nothing” during the catastrophe, represented the first public accounting of government actions after a prominent warning by a senior party leader that officials’ careers would depend on how well they responded to the crisis. In a sign the party intended the decisions to serve as examples, they were reported prominently in the party’s Sichuan Daily newspaper and relayed nationwide by the official New China News Agency.

The party has defined the disaster as a major test of its leadership, from local party secretaries tending to victims on the front lines to the highest-ranking party mandarins directing recovery from Beijing. President Hu, Premier Wen, and other members of the party’s elite Politburo Standing Committee have made repeated and widely reported visits to the quake zone. Their response has generated widespread praise among Chinese.

“The performance of officials in rescue and rebuilding operations will be an important basis for deciding on their rewards, punishments and future roles,” a directive from the party’s national Organization Department said. “Those who perform in an outstanding way will be promoted boldly. Officials who do not work well will be shifted to other positions.”

According to official counts, the Sichuan temblor killed more than 69,000 people and left 17,000 missing. About 12 million were left homeless, and a large number of towns and villages were so badly destroyed they will have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Officials said yesterday that Beichuan, one of the hardest-hit towns and the seat of Beichuan county, would be rebuilt about 20 miles to the southwest, in an area known as Bandengqiao. Urban planners described the new site as safer because it is away from earthquake-prone fault lines and lies on flatter ground, making it less exposed to landslides, according to the New China News Agency.

Many Beichuan residents have taken refuge in tents in nearby Mianyang city, unable even to return to view the ruins of their town because of the danger of flooding from waters of the Jian River, backed up behind a giant landslide at nearby Tianjiashan. The backed-up water increased its flow down an escape sluice yesterday after soldiers blasted away obstacles, causing the water level behind the landslide to drop for the first time and decreasing the danger of a catastrophic flood.