The earthquake that tore through western China last week flattened entire towns and city neighborhoods, killing as many as 50,000. As a massive military operation concentrates on rescues and disposing of the dead, countless survivors face a hardscrabble existence among the debris. Here are some snapshots of the scene: ____ LIVING IN FEAR: Every day, survivors hollow-eyed from trauma and lack of sleep relive the terror of the quake that shattered their world, as aftershocks _ sometimes four or five a day _ rumble beneath them. "We have not dared to close our eyes. We feel the ground shake everyday and we worry about landslides," said Pan Guihui, a 35-year-old farmer who fled her destroyed mountain village with her family. They huddled with her on a roadside wondering what do next. ____ THE SOUND OF DISASTER: The noise is relentless: Emergency workers in bright orange jumpsuits shout to each other as they scramble over a landscape of broken concrete looking for survivors or pulling out bodies. Anguished relatives stand before piles of rubble calling out the names of loved ones who may be buried somewhere inside. Ambulances and police cars with sirens wailing rush along, and the diesel engines of backhoes roar as they pick at the destruction, bucket by bucket. Everywhere, broken glass crunches underfoot. ___ SHELTER: Thousands of people are camped out in the streets, sheltering under plastic sheets between trees or pieces of rubble. City residents whose homes collapsed mingle with refugees flooding in from ruined mountain villages. In one such town, Yingxiu, some people who left scribbled notes on pieces of paper and poked them onto the branches of a tree bare of leaves _ messages left for loved ones who might come looking for them. In a public park in Mianyang, 300 people crowd into tents made from plastic sheets and wooden poles, and a nearby sports arena has become a relief camp. In the second-floor gym, people lie resting in boxing rings and on exercise equipment, watched over by images of muscle-flexing bodybuilders in posters plastered on the walls. The toilets are overcrowded and messy. ____ HEALTH: Liu Tao cuddles his 5-month-old son in the park and worries that he will get sick because there is nowhere to bathe him, and the few belongings he and his wife could carry from their cracked apartment building are getting grimy. "It's a lot of trouble. We buy wet tissues to wipe him but we don't dare take him back to our home to wash him," said Liu, 30. "If there is another tremor, I don't want to think of what might happen." Hospitals and other medical facilities are stretched to their limits. In the first hours after the quake, the injured poured in, leaving doctors and nurses overwhelmed and short of medicines and other necessities. Ambulances were mobbed, and surgeons amputated crushed limbs and performed other emergency surgery simultaneously in overcrowded operating rooms. ____ SURVIVAL STRUGGLE: The quake cut water and power supplies in many places, and shortages of fluids to drink is one of the relief officials' main concerns. Water was trucked in, and villagers lined up for hours with buckets, kettles and pots to get a share. Continued... |