China's hour of tragedy, triumph

From the moment we arrived at Beijing's spectacular new airport on May 6, the pride of the Chinese people as they prepared to host the Summer Olympics was evident. Six days later, in the aftermath of the Chengdu earthquake, we witnessed an even more impressive face of China.

We were visiting the Panda Reserve Center in Wolong, about three hours from Chengdu, as part of a World Wildlife Fund tour when the 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck on May 12.

The reserve is like a typical zoo but with 500-m mountains towering on all sides. At 2:28 pm, in a series of jolts that lasted about three minutes, boulders, trees and dirt came tumbling down. The nearest of the pieces of uprooted nature landed about 18 m from us.