Isolation smashed as rescuers build lifeline(2)

Buildings destroyed

The high mountains and deep valleys that dominate the local landscape are breathtakingly beautiful, but their sheer scale has hampered relief efforts and provided plenty of headaches for rescue workers as they struggle to reach isolated communities

However, Wuxing is not the only village in these forbidding mountains where residents have been forced to wait for aid to arrive in the wake of the magnitude-7 quake. Qinglongchang, Gucheng, and Qinglong are still in desperate need of relief supplies.

In Qinglongchang, one of the places hit hardest in Longmen town, almost every house has been damaged to some degree. It's estimated that more than 80 percent of them are now uninhabitable.

The only sealed road linking the village with the outside world has been destroyed, buried beneath collapsed houses. Villagers have managed to clear some parts of the road, but only to the extent that motorbikes or bicycles can use it. Cars and trucks will have to wait.

The village has 1,000 residents, scattered across 300 households. Luckily for them, most were working in the fields when the quake struck and despite the collapsed buildings, no deaths were reported in the village although around a dozen people were injured.

Chen Tianping, 40, has been sharing a shelter with 50 other people. Resources are scarce, and so five or six people huddle together beneath each blanket. Chen said she is unable to sleep at nights, not only because of the continuing aftershocks and the crying of the children, but also because she is deeply worried about the future.

The mother of two teenage students said her husband's leg was injured by falling masonry and the things she, and the other villagers, want most are food, water and a safe place to live.

"Most of the houses in the village were two-story buildings. We always stored our food on the top floor, partly to keep it away from rats, but also to allow corn to dry thoroughly. When the house started to shake, we were so scared. We rushed outside without thinking to collect any food or other belongings," said Chen.

Her house was one of few in the village with three stories. After the quake it was reduced to just two. The aftershocks come almost every hour, and no one dares to enter the unstable buildings to search for food.

The village head and local Party secretary in Qinglongchang travel to the center of Longmen town every day to collect bottled water and instant noodles. Each villager is rationed to two half-liter bottles of water and one cup of instant noodles a day, far from sufficient to meet the demand.

Special report:

7.0-magnitude earthquake jolts Ya'an, Sichuan