Driving along a bumpy road later that day, we witnessed a torrent of relief trucks, ambulances and military vehicles traveling in both directions, carrying soldiers, rescue equipment and tons of relief materials.

As of May 19, 34,073 people have died in the disaster and over 5,260 people are still missing. Seven days after the first huge earthquake, people are praying for miracles but hopes of finding more survivors are fading.

Earthquake-striken Yinghua Town.

At Yinhua town, a badly hit district of Shifang, a woman told us she had lost everything, including her family home. She had been in the medical supplies business. She said she had lost 300,000 yuan worth of stock and one of her employees had been killed. But she and her husband seemed determined to stay on in their ruined house and rebuild their business.

  The Korean rescue team.

On the mountain, rescue teams were still at work, looking for survivors under the twisted ruins of a local factory complex. We came across a Korean rescue team, who seemed to have given up hope of finding anyone alive there. Soon afterwards, they moved on to another disaster site.