The last child was out. She was alive. There were a total of 16 young survivors. No more than that.
Rescuers sighed, partly sad, partly relieved, as they stood on the debris of the Yinghua Middle School amid the half-light of early Thursday morning after 60 hours of toil.
On the suddenly silent school campus, the heartbroken cry of a father went up, "There are no more! (My child) was not found!"
The small town of Yinghua, surrounded by high mountains, is 20 km from Wenchuan County in southwesten Sichuan Province, the epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that has claimed about 15,000 lives.
When the quake rocked the town, about 300 students were taking class inside the five-floor school building.
"It was just a matter of seconds. I ran to the ground and turned back. The school building caved in," said Dai Dongli, the school's English teacher, who was standing in the hallway when the building shook.
Nine hours after the dreadful tremors, people saw the light of the first group of rescue vehicles.
No one had an idea of how many were buried under the shattered building and how many alive when some 300 Armed Police officers arrived at the site.
"I heard clear voices from the ruins when I first reached the site. They were calling for help," recalled Cheng Yuejin, the chief command of the rescue team.
It was a very difficult and delicate task. Machines can only be used to move big concrete frames and the hardest work had to be done by hands.
The last one was the toughest one. Rescuers spent 35 hours to get the 15-year-old girl Liao Youyao out.
She was buried deep in the second floor of the building. She could move her hands and body but her legs were trapped under the rubble, rescuers recalled.
They had tried almost every method but failed. There was even a desperate suggestion to cut off her legs, which was turned down.
At last, rescuers hung upside down from the crevice and knocked concrete blocks from around her by hammer and electric drill.
A dozen aftershocks made the rescue mission even harder. "We were working on a pile of ruins that would further caved in at any time. But for the sake of the children, we have no other choice," said Wang Shujian, one of the rescuers.
"I wan to dance"
Under the rubble, the kids could not see each other, blocked by pillars, bricks and tiles, but kept encouraging each other, "Don't fall asleep."
As a veteran officer, Tu Yun was ready for any horrible disastrous scene but broke into tears when he saw them, buried in the debris, picked up dusty textbooks beside them, as they were asked not to talk and save strength.
The smiling boy Jiang Meng told the rescuers, "Pull me out, I can put up with (pain)." Also, he muttered to them, "There are others down there."
Despite her fingers and legs being seriously injured, Luo Yao, said in the arms of an officer, "Uncle, I want to play piano, I want to dance ballet..."
All adults on the spot had expected the children to wail as they were saved and embraced by their parents, but they were just silently weeping.
But many will never weep again. Their bodies were placed in a hut beside the debris. Most of them were hard to identify and only a few still had the student ID cards pinned on their chest.
But, Chen Quanhong recognized all the students in her class. Her students were still wearing the cotton shoes they wore in a singing contest a week ago.
"Girl's are red and boy's are black. They are such good students," said the 29-year-old teacher, choking back her sobs.
Parents came to claim the bodies of their children but some bodies have stayed in the hut until now.
"The parents might not come. They might be gone in the earthquake as well," Chen said.
The lucky survivors have been sent to hospital but some of them did not know their parents would not be able to take them back.
The rescue team members planned to donate money for them and fund them to go to high school and even college.
"The most beautiful season in their life should not end in the beginning, though the disaster took too much happiness from them," said Cheng, the rescue team head.
(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2008)