Dr. Shi Kan, fellow researcher with the Institute of Psychology at Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), believes timely psychological intervention can help reduce the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among orphans.
He notes that 23 percent of the 4,200 orphans suffered PTSD after the 7.8 magnitude Tangshan quake in 1976, which killed more than 240,000 people in Tangshan, Hebei Province.
"I think all of the children will have psychological problems. The smaller children can't even verbalize their feelings. They have a look of terror when you mention the earthquake. They just start weeping," he says.
Dang Yuxin, 32, who lost her parents when she was six months old during the Tangshan quake, came to Mianyang to comfort orphans and tell of her own experiences.
"It is not the end of the world when you lost your parents. More horrifying is that you lose hope and confidence in later life," she says. An orphan himself of Tangshan quake, Zhang Youlu says, "We can feel those children's pain better than anyone else. We want to tell them to be strong and brave, because everything will be all right finally." Zhang, now a bookshop owner in the city, initiated the rally of Tangshan orphans to mourn the dead and donate for the quake-hit areas.
Zhang Xiangqing, president of a steel company in Tianjin, who also orphaned by the Tanshan quake, has donated 100 million yuan (14 million U.S. dollars) to disaster relief in Sichuan. "I hope the money will help build new homes and schools that will withstand earthquakes," he says.
Nationwide, thousands of Chinese have swamped online forums and phoned the hotlines of local civil affairs bureaus with offers to take in children orphaned in the quake when the government said it was drafting plans for adoptions.
For 17-year-old He Junli, a student at Beichuan Middle School, however, Mianyang stadium will be her home for quite some time. She lost her parents and all her relatives to the quake. She was relocated here with other survivors.