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Excavators Battle Debris in China Amid Fears of Disease
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Many Dujiangyan residents are reluctant to leave. "My home is here and if it's really not necessary, I won't leave," said Wu Chang Wen, 36, who is living with 10 people in a tent near Pu Bai bridge.
But Li Jian Guo, 40, was ready to try the government's temporary housing. He needed a break from Dujiangyan. "I feel the city has changed into another world," he said as he stood in line for a bus along with 19 family members. "It's so heavy. I cannot express it. Every time I see a collapsed building, I'm really nervous."
Li said he would return, though. "When the danger is gone, everyone wants to come back."
In addition to stepping up services to quake survivors, government propaganda efforts are also increasing. An office on a main street here declares itself to be the home of the Front Line Propaganda Encouragement Team. Banners are strung across streets and plastered on the fronts of trucks and the sides of cars with such slogans as "Fight the earthquake!"
A helicopter dropped leaflets over a large tent city in the center of town. They said, "10,000 people -- one heart! Together we will create a new city! Put your full effort into disaster rescue! Persevere to victory!"
The China Youth League and other groups are blanketing the region with volunteers to deliver water, milk, food and other services to survivors. Blood donation centers are swamped, and charitable donations continue to rise. Even the widow of late communist leader Deng Xiaoping, who was born in Sichuan, donated the equivalent of $14,280 to the relief effort, her entire life savings, state media reported.
Police also began stepping in more aggressively to discourage the reporting of grim news. As bodies were being dug out at the site of the two demolished apartment buildings, for example, officials moved to block reporters from recording images of the scenes.
But the anguish of surviving family members watching the earth-moving equipment was still palpable. "See that white object on top of the pile?" asked Bai Yi, a third-year college student watching the excavation work and hoping to be able to identify the body of his niece, who had not yet been recovered. "That is our refrigerator. I've been at the top of that pile. I've smelled the smell of the bodies. I have been watching all the time."
Ma Yuan Zhang, 56, has pitched his tent next to the apartment building where he used to live with his wife, son and father. He was not home when the quake hit, but the others were and only his wife was able to escape. He said he was able to get back to the apartment about an hour after the quake and heard his father yelling for help. He could not dig him out, so he found some armed police and asked them to help.
"Nobody came," he said. "Now I just want to see my family one last time. The only thing I'm asking the government for now is a car to send their bodies to the morgue."
Researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.
