Shi Huaqiang and his colleagues carefully carry the body of a student away from the rubble of a school building where he was found.

After placing the boy on the ground, Shi squats, wipes the blood away and covers him with a plastic sheet.

Shi, a 35-year-old farmer, was harvesting wheat when the earthquake struck. He immediately rushed home and found everyone in his family was safe. His 10-year-old son Shi Zhipeng was scared, as a wall at his primary school had collapsed, even though everyone was able to escape.

When he heard that help was needed in Hanwang, Shi traveled the 76 km to the town the next day. He has taken up the most morbid task.

"When I was a soldier, they knew I liked helping people in need," Shi said yesterday morning at the playing field, where 94 bodies of students from the plant's middle school were placed.

Shi is just one of the many volunteer rescue workers in Hanwang. Some 100 militiamen from Ya'an in western Sichuan arrived early on Tuesday at the town and rushed to the school to join the rescue effort.

Zhang Yan, chairwoman of Mianzhu county women's federation, who is in charge of distributing relief materials to survivors, said: "Volunteers have also donated a lot of food and bottled water. A volunteer put his own jacket on a survivor clad only in shorts when he arrived to help."

Some 1,000 students from the local police academy in Deyang are working as volunteers in hospitals, police stations and gas stations in the city.

(China Daily May 15, 2008)