By Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 16, 2008

BEICHUAN, China, May 15 -- "What floor were you on?" Five taps. "How many are you?" Eight taps. Then, tap, tap, tap, tap.

From beneath seven stories of rubble, 72 hours after Monday's massive earthquake, there were sounds of life. The taps came from the bottom of a school that slid down a slope and was buried under what was once a grocery store.

Dozens of soldiers arrived soon after the discovery and began planning how to dig the survivors out. To do it safely would take hours, they reasoned, and they would need heavy equipment to move the tower of concrete, bricks and wood.

"But they will die. That's too long," said one of the soldiers.

A local man helping with the rescue volunteered to try to wriggle in underneath the rubble to see if he could pull anyone out. But as he shined a flashlight into the crevice of twisted metal, he saw no movement.

Small tremors periodically shook the ground. This kind of rescue was too dangerous, the soldiers' commander determined, and there was little hope of getting heavy equipment anywhere near this valley of collapsed buildings.

As the soldiers continued planning, villagers walked through in a desperate search for loved ones. On the broken slabs of what had been an apartment building, one man blew a whistle and put his ear to the rubble for any reply. Another man called a name, over and over. After hundreds of cries, he hunched down, buried his head and sobbed.

Another man stood silently, a plastic bag of photographs in his hand and tears in his eyes, gazing at the pile of bricks and wires that had been a kindergarten where his wife taught. There were no signs of life in this pile.

A soldier from an army hospital said at least 80 people had been rescued in Beichuan on Thursday, 60 of them students. Five people were seen being carried away on stretchers through the ruins of the town, which used to have a population of 40,000. The injured were taken about a half-mile down a dirt trail to a road where ambulances were waiting.

Dozens of villagers also trudged along the path, many finally giving up hope of finding their families. Liu Hong stumbled along in black high-heeled sandals, the only shoes she had. Her arms were wrapped around all she had left of her life: a yellow cotton quilt, a black satchel, a pair of slippers, black socks and a comb. They had all belonged to her fiance, who was killed in the quake when his two-story office building was swallowed into the earth.

"I couldn't even find his body. Why can't I find his body?" she cried as she walked. "We wanted to live together for 70 years. We promised we were going to bury our ashes together."

Smoke rose from smoldering ruins. Several smashed cars sat on a hillside. Rockslides had pushed down trees and smashed into the town, leaving it looking as if it had been bombed. Buildings were cocked to one side. Some were cracked open. The only regular sounds were from heavy earthmoving equipment trying to get boulders out of the road. An acrid smell hung over the streets.

One woman was rescued from the second story of an apartment building after soldiers heard her moaning. The building's front wall had been shorn off and the floors and walls were cantilevered.

Using a crowbar to lift the debris of the unstable structure, rescuers spent three hours pulling her out. Once she was freed, they wrapped her in cotton batting and laid her on a stretcher. Her nose and mouth were caked with ashes and dirt, which they brushed away. The only vein they could find to administer an intravenous drip was in her foot.

Cui Changqing was one of several volunteer doctors wandering the ruins of Beichuan with a shopping bag of medicine. Tied to his doctor's coat was a red ribbon. "Everyone with this ribbon is from Tangshan," he said, the site of the earthquake that killed an estimated 240,000 people in 1976.

Cui's parents were survivors of that disaster. When he saw the news of the Sichuan quake, he asked his hospital for time off and airfare to reach the site.

The dead were laid out near where they had been found. One body, covered in a pink sheet, was about 100 yards from where the soldiers were planning their rescue efforts.

After about two hours of discussion, they heard by radio that more children were alive in the rubble of a school farther down the valley. Since they could confirm only one person alive in this place, they left behind some bottled water and six army paramedics and moved out to try to rescue those at the school.

Several local men who had been watching the scene scrambled down the valley and began moving rocks and wood to see if they could get a water bottle to the person trapped underneath. In all the noise, it was unclear if there were any more taps.