BEICHUAN - MOURNERS crowded ruins in southwest China on Tuesday to mark one year since an earthquake shattered the region, while President Hu Jintao called reconstruction efforts a testament to national strength.
In Sichuan province, where the earthquake rippled out from Wenchuan County on May 12 last year, survivors and relatives filed into devastated towns to mourn loved ones among the more than 80,000 people killed.
INCENSE AND ASHES
Many mourning residents lit incense and ritual paper money intended to comfort the dead. Ashes swirled in the blustery air.
'I feel the earthquake isn't over yet. Every time I see something about it, I feel like crying,' said Zhou Ya, a 20-year-old woman who lost a brother and sister in Beichuan, as she lit incense and ritual money in its ruins.
Mr Hu laid a wreath at a memorial in Yingxiu, a town near the epicentre wiped out by the quake, and called the vast effort to rescue survivors and rebuild the region a vindication of ruling Communist Party policy.
'During the quake rescue and reconstruction, the whole country has strived with one heart,' Mr Hu, sombre and low-voiced, said in front of a stone carving of a clock showing the time - 2.28pm local time - when the quake struck.
'The constant improvement of our national strength since reform and opening up began is the firm material foundation for our victory over the massive Wenchuan earthquake disaster,' he said in the speech shown live on Chinese television.
In the weeks preceding the anniversary, official media have cast the quake as a patriotic milestone demonstrating the government's strength and commitment to people's welfare.
But for many families of the dead, the anniversary was above all a painful personal re-encounter with the frantic scenes of 12 months ago, when bewildered residents and ill-equipped soldiers struggled to save those trapped in homes, offices and schools.
In Beichuan, a valley town wiped out by the quake and nowadays usually empty and sealed off by guards, locals and camera-snapping visitors poured in after police opened the gates.
