By Huang Zhiling and Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-16 08:04

CHENGDU - Ben Sansburn and his three American friends got up before 5 am yesterday in an attempt to reach Wenchuan county.

Some of the 33 foreign tourists in Wolong arrive in Chengdu on Thursday. [China Daily]

Sansburn, 28, who is studying Tibetan at the Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu, is looking for his friends, Chad and Jenny Graber, and their 2-year-old son.

Chad, 28 and Jenny, 30, both teach English at the Aba Teachers' College in Wenchuan.

"We haven't heard from them since the quake. We went in vain to the US Consulate General in Chengdu to get information about the couple," Sansburn told China Daily.

Sansburn and his three friends went to Dujiangyan on Wednesday, but returned to Chengdu soon after because they had no tents, food, water or bicycles.

Yesterday, however, they were better equipped. They drove to Dujiangyan, but were stopped by the police.

"We were told that a major landslide had blocked the road linking Dujiangyan with Wenchuan," Sansburn said.

So he parked his car near the Qingcheng Bridge, and his three friends - Robert Weaver, 29, Geoff Sensenig, 36, and Nate Stoltzfus, 27 - got on their bikes and headed to Wenchuan in search of the Grabers.

Sansburn, who did not take his bicycle, is waiting in his car for his friends to return.

The four Americans are not the only ones braving the mountain road in their quest to reach Wenchuan.

Peng Kangyun, 32, from the town of Yingxiu in Wenchuan, moved to Dujiangyan in 2003, when his home village was demolished to make way for the construction of the Zipingpu Reservoir.

His elder sister and their two aunts moved to Pengzhou, also a quake-ravaged area.

Peng said he has been unable to contact his 93-year-old grandmother Su Yutang and 15 other relatives in Yingxiu since Monday.

Yesterday, he, his sister and two aunts decided to trek all the way to their hometown.

"It takes one hour and 20 minutes to reach Yingxiu from Dujiangyan by bus. But it takes more than 10 hours on foot," Peng said.

As a child he witnessed a lot of landslides on the road linking Dujiangyan with Wenchuan, and was therefore quite used to trekking, he said.

All along the road yesterday, villagers and soldiers could be seen offering people fleeing Wenchuan water, bread and biscuits.

Zhou Changqing, a 60-year-old farmer from the village of Dujiang in Dujiangyan, was yesterday offering people a shuttle service between the Qingcheng Bridge and Zipingpu Reservoir.

He was charging 10 yuan ($1.40) for the 5-km trip.