Early morning, Longnan City, a boy in an emergency shelter tent looks beyond.

Middle school students exhibit good spirits outside an emergency shelter tent, Hejiaping Village.

An installation of medical care tents.

A villager retrieves belongings from the rubble.

PLA soldiers prepare for another rescue mission.

The catastrophic Wenchuan Quake of May 12 shattered my peaceful daily routine. Upon learning of the disaster I immediately sought authorization to travel to the hard-hit areas. My reasons were simple: I am a journalist; I love my homeland; and if I did not go and in some way help, I would regret it for the rest of my days.
May 22, Lanzhou
A week after the Wenchuan Quake. Nothing seemed to have changed much in Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu. The sun shined as brightly as before, and the streams of people flowed down the street.
However, reminders of what had happened were apparent. The national flag hung at half mast on Dongfanghong (The East Is Red) Square; earthquake relief banners hung outside hotels and shops; and red donation boxes with the logo of the Red Cross seemed to be on nearly every corners.
According to the Information Office of the Gansu Provincial CPC Committee, by May 21, within the province, 365 people had died due to the earthquake, 7,560 were injured, 518,200 houses and 6,753 schools collapsed, 1.4413 million houses and 6,540 schools were damaged, and 1.564 million people had to be resettled as quickly as possible. Gansu was second only to Sichuan in terms of the degree of destruction.
I understood the reluctance of taxi drivers to head to my final destination, Longnan, the hardest hit-area in Gansu. The first said “sorry” to me and my fellow journalists. He had just returned from there, and could not bear the thought of again navigating the rock and mud slides. We understood, contacted the taxi company, found a willing driver and, with no idea of what lay ahead, we set off.
May 23, Tianshui
The city of Tianshui, hometown of Fuxi, a legendary Chinese ruler who trained his people to fish, hunt, and raise livestock, is more than 300 kilometers from Lanzhou. It now serves as a hub for transiting the wounded and disaster-relief materials. “We must do our routine work while supporting the forefront of the quake-relief,” remarked Yang Ruifeng, director of the Information Office of the Tianshui Municipal CPC Committee, on the night we arrived.
Tianshui No.1 People’s Hospital, the largest of its kind in the city, accom-modated 32 patients from other hard-hit areas, including the counties of Wenxian and Huixian; and the staff was still attempting to make room for the wounded. The medical personnel worked in shifts and took their brief breaks in tents on the street.
The city of Tianshui had become a sea of tents. Many people were sleeping out of doors, wary of aftershocks.
A seven-year-old girl sadly informed me that four of her classmates were killed by a falling wall. “I miss them so much,” she said. “I miss my school. I’ll never forget the Quake.” In a tent, a grandmother was washing the face of her little grand daughter. Her son and daughter-in-law live in the United States. To offer some help, she decided to take back and look after their three-year-old daughter, but she could not have foreseen the earthquake. “It’s nothing compared with those who are gone,” she said, “and I’m deeply moved by the unity of the Chinese people after the disaster.”
The adobe-structured houses in Baijia Mountain Village in Zaojiao Town, Qinzhou District, more than 20 kilometers from Tianshui, fell. Fortunately, there were no injuries. The villagers did not talk much, but helped each other repair the homes which still stood.
“It is far from enough, the ten tents offered by the government,” said the Party secretary of the village committee. “Most of my fellow villagers have to stay overnight in sheds or tractors.”
“More tents, please!” I hear, this plea, wherever I go.
May 24, Longnan
The mountain path became more rugged as we moved southward towards the harder-hit area. Tension filled the air.
Along the way we saw heavy-loaded trucks which had flipped over. Nobody knew how. “Were they hit by falling rocks? Or what?” Zooming past are all kinds of emergency vehicles, policemen, soldiers, and trucks transporting prefabricated houses equipped with air conditioners.
After a 500-kilometer-long journey, our car finally arrived at Longnan as the sun set.
No words can describe my feelings upon my first sight of Longnan, a place mauled by the Quake. Peddlers were hawking by the streams of emergency vehicles; kids were running among the neatly-arrayed tents; some were watching TV; others were playing mahjong beneath the street lamps. People still enjoyed life in various ways. On their faces I read “disparage” towards the disaster and “faith” in the future.
“We are going to sleep in the car,” I thought to myself. But, to my surprise, it was arranged that I and the other journalists sleep in the tent - a first class reception, relative to conditions since the Quake. The local information department has accepted more than 30 groups of journalists since the catastrophe, and we are the sixth group to arrive from outside Gansu that day.
I felt guilty sitting along the roadside, waiting for an empty bed. I spoke with a reporter from the Gansu TV Station, who rushed to the disaster-hit area at the first moment. “The catastrophe has three aspects,” he said. “First, all the houses fell apart with all that locals owned inside, and now they have nothing left. Second, the majority of the victims are in bad need of food and drinking water, and there are less aid supplies than in neighboring provinces. And finally, most young people have escaped from the Quake because they work outside of Gansu, leaving behind the seniors, who are the main victims.”
He suggested that I go to Hejiaping Village in Wudu County, which he said suffered worse than the harder-hit Wenxian County in Gansu. Two days ago, Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee (CPCCC) and secretary of the Political and Judiciary Commission under the CPCCC, visited Hejiaping to learn more about the catastrophic situation there.
It was late at night. Liu Weiping, deputy secretary of the Gansu Provincial CPC Committee, conveyed greetings to journalists at the forefront. He extended his gratitude towards China Pictorial and spoke highly of our timely reports on the Quake. “We are in bad need of 70,000 tents,” he said, “and we need more attention from the media and more support from all walks of life.”
The shortage of tents is our primary concern. By midnight, when I finally was given bedding in the tent, I knew quite well that somewhere not far away, on the other side of the mountain, many victims, cold and hungry, were waiting for assistance from the outside world.
May 25, Hejiaping
At daybreak, a faint sound of the first round of prayers came from the mosque in the distance.
Longnan, once a city of tranquility, but now the most distressed area in the province, is a place of ruin and tents: tent hospitals, tent hotels, tent counter-disaster headquarters, tent information centers, and so on.
Soldiers from the Iron Hammer Troupe of the Lanzhou Military Area Command gathered outside the city for another mission in Wenxian County.
We began our journey to Hejiaping, Wudu County, south of Longnan City. Every now and then, we asked about the location of Hejiaping. After a 40-minute trek through river valleys and dangerous crags, a passerby pointed at a village situated half-way up a hill in the distance.
Our four-wheel-drive vehicle drove off the highway and we made our way through the hard twists and turns along the mountain path. The car roared through the dust and we reached, at last, the small village of Hejiaping, 1,200 meters above sea level.
I had never seen anything like it. Half of the road leading to the village was sunk. Into view came a world of fallen walls and collapsed houses with broken beams, window frames, and doors here and there amongst the debris. Not even one complete building still stood.
The past warmth of the homeland could still be felt on the couplets. The Chinese characters of xi, meaning “double happiness” for a newlywed household, and various posters on the gates and broken walls lying on the ground. In seconds, all that was sweet was taken from this small mountain village.
Pan Xiaolin, secretary of the village’s Party committee, accompanied us during our visit. “There are 426 villagers in our village,” he explained, “and all the houses are collapsed. People are living in the tents provided by the government.” It has been several days since the earthquake struck, and villagers are still searching among the ruins for anything useful. In the courtyards are piled up deformed electric appliances, furniture, and kitchen ware, even a piece of complete brick and timber. This is all they have - the hope for the reconstruction of their homeland.
“I had five rooms,” said a villager, “and now they are gone. My decades of hard work are now a waste. Our government has sent us food, drinking water, and tents soon after the Quake. I’m sure we can build a better home. We are still alive. We have the government.”
I stopped at a tent near the entrance to the village. There, two junior middle school students were busy studying for an important examination drawing near. “No problem,” was the reply when I asked about their readiness for the exam, even though their houses were turned to ruins. I could see the determination in their eyes; no panic, just anticipation for the future.
Confidence and courage were all I found during my stay in Gansu. The engaged doctors and nurses in the tent clinic of the No.1 People’s Hospital of Longnan; my colleagues with bloodshot eyes working for the local media and information departments; the wounded enduring pain and suffering in silence; and the victims who depend on themselves and help each other. Never had I seen such humanity, so unyielding and so proud.