Dance of death up and down the mountains

Working close to the epicenter of last Monday's Wenchuan earthquake for nearly a week, I, a Sichuan native, cannot help mulling over how nature has challenged us to overcome the toughest circumstances.

What was the great disaster really like? The locals have their own ways to describe the moment when the quake struck.

Peng Shuihe, 38-year-old miner, started to stride through the 1,000-meter-long tunnel in the high-altitude mountains of Shifang shortly after the devastating earthquake. Describing his ordeal, he said: "The landslides and falling stones lasted for a day and night in the valleys and the noises they made were like bursting fireworks during Spring Festival."