Dreams shattered by death and destruction

QINGCHUAN, Sichuan: Zhong Jiaming, 33, clearly remembers the last time he called his mother over the phone in Qingchuan county, the northernmost part of Sichuan that borders Gansu province.

"It was May 11, Mother's Day. I told mom that I would build a house in Qingchuan and live with her there because houses in Chengdu are very expensive and I cannot afford one," said the manager of a property management firm in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

The quake that struck the next day claimed his mother and father, who lived in the six-story dormitory building of the county's traditional Chinese medicine hospital. With them is gone Zhong's dream of owning a house in his once beautiful hometown.