'I'll find him, dead or alive'

On Sunday afternoon, a M1-71 helicopter chartered from China Eastern Airlines landed at Guanghan airport. Out stepped Du Juan, a 40-year-old nurse, who helped emergency workers to move the injured into emergency vehicles.

Du works at a rural clinic at Yuli, a small town in Beichuan where many locals are ethnic Qiang. The quake isolated the place from the outside world for six days. Finally, on Sunday, helicopters were able to transfer the gravely injured, and Du accompanied them on the flight.

After they arrived in Guanghan and all the patients were unloaded, she asked a flight assistant for his cellphone and made a call to her brother in Mianyang, who did not know whether she was alive or dead. Her hands trembled and her voice quivered. She could no longer hold herself when the call went through. Droned by the aircraft propeller, her howl could be heard by all on the scene.