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Rebuilding takes center stage

By Hu Yinan and Zhang Haizhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-18 08:46

People watch a movie shown at the open space near the headquarters of disaster relief efforts in Yingxiu, Sichuan province, one of the worst-hit areas in the May 12 earthquake, on June 12. It was the first movie shown in the town since the quake. [Xinhua]

YINGXIU: Lying more than 50 km south of Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the deadly quake that hit Sichuan province on May 12, this township had seemed like a devastated battlefield in the early days of the disaster.

More than one month later, in a nationwide effort to pick up the pieces, Yingxiu is steadily on the road to reconstruction.

Mobile hospitals, temporary shelters and makeshift grocery stores peddling basic necessities have sprouted among the wide expanse of collapsed buildings, lending a semblance of a return to normal life.

Still, looking down at the town from the top of a hillside dubbed the "Tomb of Tens of Thousands of People" for the innumerable corpses found in Yingxiu and buried at the site, the images of death and destruction from a month ago came flooding back: heavy rains, landslide-blocked mountain roads and People's Liberation Army troops scrambling to save lives from piles of debris.

Captain Liu Huichao from the "Iron Army" division of the Jinan Military Area Command had trekked into Yingxiu on the evening of May 14.

The mission of his 90-strong company then: to search for survivors among the ruins and save them.

A month later, the 27-year-old said the soldiers are now tasked with disaster relief and reconstruction.

"Our army is still in Yingxiu," Liu said.

"But now we focus on helping quake victims build tents and makeshift homes."

Hardly any survivors are expected to be found as more than a month has passed since the quake struck, Liu said.

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