MIANYANG, Sichuan: As he walks alone with a bandaged head and arm outside Nanhe Stadium, a temporary center for quake survivors, Wang Qingzhou appears fairly relaxed.
He looks like a different man from the one who managed to get out of Beichuan two days ago, his native county where most of the buildings collapsed and many people were killed in Monday's disaster.
Wang managed to pull himself out of a collapsed four-story building, in which he lived on the top floor, and where his younger sister remained buried.
"I was hit on the head with a large brick and I needed 20 stitches," he told China Daily.
"I couldn't take off my shirt when I first went to the clinic as it was caked in blood."
The 34-year-old was chatting with his younger sister when the quake hit. He ran to the washroom to hide.
"A few loud bangs, and everything was gone I cried for help for half an hour, but no one was around," he said.
"My sister was crying for help, but I couldn't help her until I get myself out of the debris," Wang said.
When he finally did get out, Wang still was unable to save his sister because he was bleeding so much.
"My wife is still somewhere in Beichuan. She's about five months pregnant," he said with a blank look.
"And my parents are trapped on the mountains on the outskirts of town."
But Wang's 10-year-old son survived the quake and is now in Jiuzhou Stadium, another center for survivors in Mianyang. Wang was transferred to Nanhe on Thursday.
"The food and water supplies are okay, and I'm really impressed with the volunteers' work," he said.
"The government has also helped a great deal."
Apart from government-provided lunch boxes, many Mianyang residents have been sending homemade porridge, vegetables, meat and steamed buns to the survivors.
"The only thing is that I can't sleep. With so many people around, the air and temperature here are an issue. It feels much better under the trees," Wang said.
Ma Peisong, deputy director-general of the stadium's rescue office, said Nanhe hosts more than 8,000 survivors, many of them from Beichuan.
"A community has been formed, although more tents are needed," he said.
That community comprises survivors, volunteers and medical personnel. Survivors can also make free phone calls to friends and family in two temporary phone booths.
"We are trying to offer food, water and basic sanitation for all," Ma said.
"And we're working on medicine to treat infections."
People like Zhang Lili, 19, one of the 2,000 local volunteers in and around Nanhe, are trying to accomplish those goals.
"We just want to make the survivors' life easier," he said.
Support workers have also poured into the stadium from outside the city and province.
On Friday morning, 87 people from Tangshan, Hebei province, the site of China's worst earthquake to date, rushed to Nanhe after a day and night on the road.
"We feel the pain of the quake victims here," one of the team's drivers, who lost his father in the 1976 quake, said.
Source:China Daily
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