We have definitely made a lot of progress since 2008

Liang Jian, 50, director of the neurosurgery department at Wuhan Central Hospital, Hubei province.

On May 12, 2008, I was lying on my bed resting after a long morning of surgery when the building began to shake. It was an earthquake.

Soon after, I was called and told to leave immediately for Wenchuan, Sichuan province, with the Hubei provincial rescue team. The damage from the earthquake was widespread, and on the first day of our deployment the local airport had been damaged so our plane was unable to land. It was quickly repaired, though, so we arrived on the second day and started operations.