HOWZAT

Inside the stadium, blank-eyed farmers still in shock lay on quilts, sacks or flattened cardboard boxes spread out on the floor. Others curled up on treadmills. A pair of little boys had taken over two exercise bicycles and were playing at racing cars. Jackets and clothes dangled from the handlebars. Another group made their home inside a boxing ring. All of them were from around Beichuan, a town that disappeared on Monday. Tears poured down Li Fengyin’s cheeks. Seeing a foreigner she grasped her hands and begged for help: “Can you tell the authorities I can’t find my son. He’s only 12 and I’m afraid for him. I hope he’s safe. His school collapsed but people told me that the children managed to escape. But where is he?”

Mrs Li, 33, feared that her husband, too, was among the nearly 20,000 people buried in rubble across Mianyang county, the administrative area for Beichuan. “I am here with my parents. I can’t find anyone else from my family.”

She had walked for nine hours to find help after her home collapsed. “It just crumbled on top of us. We managed to crawl out from a corner. People tell us the survivors ran up the mountain to reach safety. But I can’t be sure that my son is with his father.”

Her deeply tanned face and rough-skinned hands were testimony to her life as a farmer in this remote corner of Sichuan province. She seemed lost as she wandered the corridors of the ultra-modern stadium. She had no idea how she was going to find her son. Landslides blocked the road between their home and his school. “We were left with nothing. Everything was gone. We just ran for our lives.”

Her mother clutched her hand and tried to reassure her that she would soon be reunited with her only son, born under China’s “one couple, one chid” policy. Mrs Li could not bear to contemplate any other future.

Little remains for her at home. Nestled at the foot of a steep valley, Beichuan was devastated by the earthquake. Gao Shufa was outside in the street when it struck. She said that the ground seemed to ripple under her feet; then the buildings collapsed. Worse was to come: the mountains moved on either side of the valley, sending millions of tonnes of rock and earth crashing down to bury the crumpled houses and blocking the river that flowed through the heart of the town.

“Beichuan is beyond rescue,” she said. “We ran for our lives. The old people died because they could not run fast enough.”

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