By Patrick Whiteley (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-16 06:57

The Beijing Olympics message of peace and unity was the last lesson students of Juyuan Middle School received, moments before an earthquake killed most of their schoolmates.

About 900 students from the Juyuan Middle School in the city of Dujiangyan were believed to have been buried as the school building collapsed, with a large number of fatalities expected.

In this remaining classroom in Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan, a blackboard shows Olympic messages of peace and love. About 900 students are believed to be buried at the site. [Courtesy of Jon Stephenson]

Yesterday, torch pictures and Games slogans - One World, One Dream - still remained etched on the blackboard of one of the very few classrooms that remained standing.

A hand-drawn picture of a man running with the torch was displayed on the blackboard, next to the Olympic day countdown. On Monday, May 12, there was "88 days to go" written on the blackboard.

"The torch is a symbol of the Olympics, light, peace, justice and unity. Everybody in the world should be at peace forever," the blackboard lesson read.

"Love will remain in our hearts forever."

School backpacks, drink cartons, ice-cream wrappers and teachers' notes were scattered among the debris of bricks and concrete. One English textbook was opened to the passage: "Go for it" and "How was your day?"

Yesterday, after three days of frantic searching, rescue operations began winding down.

But some refused to give up hope. A mother stood silently outside the crumbled remains of the school, holding a class picture of smiling students. Her missing child was one of the young faces. She was waiting and hoping for a miracle.

New Zealand journalist Jon Stephenson described these stirring images as he visited Dujiangyan, a city of 570,000 people, yesterday.

"There is a subdued feeling among the people and there is little hope of finding anyone alive at the school," he said.

"The school was three to five stories high and it's flattened. But there are some classrooms walls standing. There are pictures of the Olympic torch and the signs of celebration of the Games."

Stephenson, who covered the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, compared the Sichuan earthquake with the horrors of the 2004 disaster, which killed 225,000 people in 11 countries. He said the whole world was watching this unfolding tragedy.

"There is a great deal of interest in New Zealand, because of the big Chinese community there, but this is a very important international story," he said.

He said the city's health workers were spraying the disaster with disinfectant to protect from diseases spread by the corpses.

He said locals were wandering around in a state of shock, some wearing masks, others smoking. He said volunteer helpers were also rushing around helping those in need.

Shanghai US expat Paul Salo, who was also in Dujiangyan, said he had never witnessed such devastation.

"There was a woman holding a picture, and they are still hoping victims are still alive, looking at the pile of rubble," he said.

"But nobody is getting out of that. It is beyond a miracle.

"Everything in the place has been flattened to the ground. All around us is the smell of death in the air. They are spraying disinfectant everywhere, so you can smell that too."

He said despite the suffering, the local people were helping everybody in need, even visiting foreigners.

"A few boys came up to us and offered us boiled eggs. They didn't want us to go hungry."

The authorities estimate that more than 80 percent of the buildings in the city have imploded and have been razed to the ground.