'The Mountains Are Sliding Down'

They came down from the mountains in their scores, seeking food and shelter for themselves and help for those they had to leave behind.

Hours of scrambling over rocky terrain had brought them to the precarious safety of Hanwang.

Perhaps half the buildings here have collapsed; those still standing hang at crazy, alarming angles. Hundreds, probably thousands, of residents are buried, almost certainly dead.

Hundreds more are encamped in open spaces but, to those who came across the mountains from Qingping, it was at least a temporary haven.

People had driven from nearby towns to deliver medicine and water. Soldiers dished up food to rescuers and survivors alike, and Chinese Red Cross tents sheltered victims in the town square.

Tang Xinfen threw herself in the dust, weeping as she pleaded with someone, anyone, to airlift medicine to survivors still trapped in Qingping by the mountains which surround it. She had tramped for six hours to find aid.

"Please, use helicopters to bring medicine in. The roads are blocked [by landslides] and nobody can get there," she said. "People are dying every hour."

Almost every house on her street had crashed down within 10 or 20 seconds of the shock, she explained.

People were thrown out of their homes and onto the road by the force of the quake. But Tang insisted thousands could be saved if only aid reached them in time.

"Some people are still alive, but they are badly injured and they need medical care," she said. "Because the weather is warm, their wounds are becoming infected."

Hundreds of rescuers were struggling to reach the area, but only 10 had made it when Tang's party of survivors left at dawn today.

A helicopter drop of water and food had proved fruitless: the bottles and packages broke and spilled open as they hit the ground.

"People couldn't get out with us because they were kids or too old," Shi Yunfang said. Her husband, Tang's brother, was missing.

"Others who are young and strong stayed to take care of them. But there is no completely safe place inside Qingping - the mountains are sliding down."

Their neighbor Zhou Yuan said earth and debris had dammed the river in the town, increasing the risk of flooding and further slippage.

As many as 2,000 workers were unable to escape from a phosphorus mine there, she added.

"As we left, along the road, there were people trapped in cars crying for help. We had no way to get them out - all we could do was give them our food and water," she said.

Tang feared they were not much safer in Hanwang.

"We at least need to get to Deyang city [40km away], because there is a risk of flooding and landslides. It's not safe here," she said.

Many had already left, fleeing to safer parts of Mianzhu city, or had traveled further down to the road to Chengdu, Sichuan's capital.

In the late afternoon, a faint shudder and muffled rumble sent panic coursing through the crowds in the main square.

Within minutes, the tarmac was jammed with vehicles. Small cars were crammed with seven or eight passengers as others huddled in the back of pick-up trucks.

But many had no means of transport, and some refused to go. As soldiers and firefighters combed the wreckage of two schools, factories and scores of shops and apartment buildings, they waited for their loved ones.

"We can't do anything, but don't want to leave," Zhang Shunyu said as she stood by the single-story remains of what had been a five-story block.

Her 20-year-old daughter was buried under four floors of rubble.

Further on, a man waited patiently as rescuers combed what was left of Hanwang County Central primary school.

The whimpers rescue workers had heard from the rubble had fallen silent overnight. Behind him, bodies lay sheathed in plastic on the concrete ping pong tables in the playground.

"I came here minutes after the quake, but my daughter was already dead," he said. "I could see her body, but they still haven't got it out.

"My wife's parents died when the hospital collapsed, and mine have gone to Deyang. But my wife and I are staying until we have our little girl. I have a coffin ready for her. I want to bury my daughter."