DESPERATE MEASURES: Li Yi, 10, had to have her left leg amputated so that she could be freed from the ruins of her school in Miaoba, Beichuan county. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

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As I entered the disaster zone at about 8pm on Wednesday, I saw doctors trying to revive a student pulled out moments earlier from the debris that used to be the main five-storey building of Beichuan Middle School.

She had a bandaged stump in place of her right leg. Her face was covered in grey ash.

A medic pumped her chest, yelling at her to wake up. There was no response.

Less than 20m away, a massive military rescue operation was under way. Scores of soldiers clambered on top of the two-storey-high mass of rubble, struggling to reach the estimated 1,000 students and teachers buried underneath.

Lessons were in full swing when the quake struck just before 2.30pm on Monday. Up to 2,000 managed to escape before the school crumbled.

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Every 15 minutes or so, rescuers extricated a limp, lifeless body. These scenes hammered home the ferocity of the quake and the extent of the destruction suffered by this hilltop county of 160,000 people - one of the worst-hit places in Sichuan province.

It also made me realise the immense challenge of carrying out timely rescue work in rural and remote areas, where unpredictable geography and outmoded infrastructure hamper even the best of efforts.

Beichuan county, 130km north-east of the quake's epicentre and a three-hour drive north from Chengdu city, suffered heavy casualties. Reports estimate 5,000 have perished and that another 15,000 are missing. This means that about one in eight Beichuan inhabitants is a quake victim.

All of the dozen or so people I spoke to had lost family members. Some were numb with grief, others, hysterical.

'My poor children!' screamed a woman who had walked three hours from her hilltop village, where, she said, almost all were dead. 'I left them behind! I can hear them calling out to me to save them!' she wailed.

Madam Liu Yaocui, 36, and her husband Mr Fu Xiaohan, 38, have not left Beichuan Middle School since it collapsed on Monday, burying their only child inside.

They have not slept. They are surviving on biscuits and water handed out by Chinese troops who arrived in Beichuan on foot on Tuesday, 24 hours after the quake hit.

The soldiers had to traverse narrow mountain roads, blocked in many places by landslides, to get in.

Madam Liu is convinced that her 15-year-old daughter Fu Ting is still alive.

'I have to believe because I have nothing left,' she said, her eyes red from crying.

From 8pm until midnight, I watched rescuers pull out more than a dozen bodies. Miraculously, they found at least three still alive. Fu Ting was not among them.

Rescue teams worked tirelessly through the night. Bodies piled up in a field nearby.

I spent a sleepless night in an emergency relief tent, fearing the worst in Beichuan's county seat, 500m downhill from the school. It is Beichuan's main city and rescuers had not yet gone in.

As I set out at 5am, I saw why. A pleasant, 15-minute stroll in normal times, the only connecting road was virtually impassable for heavy rescue vehicles like bulldozers. The quake had caused huge cracks and gaping depressions in the road, and large tracts of hillside had collapsed onto it.

After 20 minutes of scrambling downhill over loose rocks, I entered Beichuan's county seat - only to find that it is no more.

The entire city lies in utter ruin. Every building I saw had either totally or partially collapsed, expelling its contents violently onto the streets. In some places, the road had been thrust upwards by about 5m. Huge hillside boulders had come crashing down and crushed buses, cars and motorcycles into pulp.

Limbs and torsos stuck out from between the rubble. From the smell in the air, the bodies had begun to rot.

The town was so eerily quiet, I could hear rockfalls triggered by mild aftershocks in the distance. Survivors had fled the city. But many more remain buried in buildings.

At 9.30am yesterday, the first rescue troops poured in, after bulldozers cleared a way into the city. A trickle of survivors then made their way back to their homes, many to rescue precious possessions.

Mr Zhao Zhenquan, 46, had wanted only one thing.

It was an album with pictures of his 15-year-old daughter Zhao Jun, who, along with hundreds of schoolmates, was buried under rubble when her school crashed down.

'I tried to dig through the rubble for the past three days, but without heavy machinery, my hands are no use,' said Mr Zhao, fighting back tears.

'I stand at the site for hours and shout her name, but she never replies,' he said. 'The rescuers should have come in earlier.'

Flipping through the album, he said: 'I have no home, no money, only the clothes on my back. This is my most precious possession now.'

tracyq@sph.com.sg

Death toll may hit 50,000