RAIN TURNED the playground to mud as rescuers dragged the bodies of hundreds of schoolchildren out of the wreckage of the Ju Yuan middle school in earthquake-shattered Sichuan province, leaving the corpses to be identified by their grieving parents in a makeshift field mortuary in the basketball court.
This is China's worst humanitarian disaster in three decades. Wave after wave of aftershocks played havoc with relief efforts across the stricken earthquake zone, where tens of thousands are dead, missing or trapped under smashed houses, schools and factories.
In Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu, a strong aftershock measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale drove people from their houses, with families setting up under tarpaulins, afraid to go indoors. There have been almost 2,000 aftershocks, with three stronger than 6.0 in magnitude.
Patrons using the restaurant in the Jinjiang hotel in Chengdu were directed to tables away from the glass roof, and while writing this story, this correspondent's room was shaken by a strong aftershock.
Rescuers were still trying to get to remote areas and there were fears the number of dead could double once rescue workers were able to fully assess the damage to Wenchuan, a city of 120,000 that lies above the epicentre of the quake at the foothills of the Tibetan plateau.
Dense cloud cover and driving rain made mobilising troops in Wenchuan difficult, but the prognosis is ominous. Driving west from Chongqing to Chengdu, trucks bearing telecommunications and medical equipment for the affected areas rattled along the roads. But petrol is at a premium, with long queues outside filling stations and a serious shortage of liquid petroleum gas.
Some 2,000 tourists were travelling throughout the region at the time of the quake, including 15 tourists from Britain and 12 Americans on a panda-watching tour. No Irish citizens were said to be at risk from the earthquake.
According to state television, the official death toll is nearly 12,000, but that is expected to rise dramatically, with at least 10,000 people reportedly found buried in Mianzhu city alone.
China has mobilised more than 50,000 soldiers to help victims of the country's worst earthquake in 30 years, since the Tangshan earthquake left almost 300,000 dead, although chairman Mao Zedong muzzled reporting of that disaster.
Reporting on the crisis has been candid, reflecting growing openness in media coverage of disasters, which started with the Sars epidemic in 2003 and also allowed coverage of a raft of mining disasters.
"Rescue teams of soldiers and armed police officers are going all out to reach the worst-hit regions and many have already started rescuing trapped people," said Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at the disaster relief headquarters in Dujiangyan.
He has been an omnipresent figure in the rescue efforts, hailing survivors trapped beneath rubble with a loudspeaker and urging redoubled efforts from troops.