A spark of hope amid debris of despair

"Can I get some water?" Those were 70-year-old Hu Mingchun's first words on reaching a safe place five days after the May 12 deadly earthquake leveled Beichuan county in Sichuan province.

Hu was rescued from a village in a narrow valley between forested mountains about 2,000 m above the sea level after an eight-hour ordeal.

Hundreds of people live in the villages nestled in the mountains, and most of them were working in the fields when the quake struck on May 12. That's why they escaped possible death.