Xue Yuchao has finally brought home the ashes of his four family members lost in the May 12 quake last year which claimed 70,000 lives.

"Now they can rest in peace," says Xue, the 52-year-old man with dark complexion struggling to hold back his tears.

The devastating quake took his mother, his son, sister and brother.

Standing amid the debris of their apartment building in Dujiangyan, one of the hardest hit cities in southwest China's Sichuan Province, Xue recalls, "The building collapsed in the blink of an eye, and my son never had the chance to escape."

Xue's mother lived in the building with his brother. His son, a 21-year-old university student who was back for vacation, was staying with "Grandma".

Xue speaks proudly of his elder son, who was awarded scholarships every year for his excellence in studies, relieving Xue's pressure of paying for the 6,000 yuan tuition, a number the family cannot afford with only a little over 1,000 yuan from selling vegetables and 300 yuan as the minimum social welfare support from the government.

"I ran as fast as I could to my mother's place after I escaped from my house," Xue recalls, adding that his house also collapsed and he lost everything in the house.

Then Xue ran to see his second son, who studied across the street. He was fine. Xue ran back to his mother's place, calling their names, phoning their mobiles, all to no avail.

Maybe they escaped, Xue thought to himself. He looked everywhere, still to no avail. His hope was shattered on May 17, when they found the bodies of his son, his brother and his sister. But Xue's mother was never found.

There was no time to mourn. Funeral homes and police took away the bodies to cremate as the government rushed to avoid the threat of epidemics.

Liu Liangzhi, head of the Dujiangyan Funeral Home, recalls about 200 dead bodies arriving each day the first week after the earthquake.

"The number of bodies was beyond our crematorium's capacity," Liu says. With six cremators, the funeral home could only cremate 36 bodies a day. "We had to work 24 hours a day," Liu says.

The dead bodies soon occupied the funeral home and there was no time for any ceremony demanded by Chinese tradition.

The Investigation Department of Chengdu Public Security Bureau mapped out a plan to identify the victims on May 14 and dispatched 54 forensic doctors to the earthquake zones in the city. About 30 forensic experts collected DNA samples from the dead at Liu's crematorium.

Ding Yong, a forensic expert from the investigation department, says they first photographed the bodies and then collected DNA samples.

"For each body, we took three pictures, full figure, face and birthmarks or objects found on the bodies," Ding said.

If the body was still warm, forensic workers took blood samples. From decaying bodies, cartilage, tooth or bone was collected in an ethanol-filled tube. The samples were all coded with numbers.

By last September, the forensic experts in Chengdu had photographed 585 bodies or taken DNA samples. Some bodies were immediately identified by relatives at the funeral home.

Xue went to Dujiangyan police station to have his blood test taken for DNA identification two weeks after the quake, in the hope of finding his missing mother.

All the blood tests were taken free of charge, says Mao Jiong, director of the DNA lab of the investigation department,

Mao says more than 100 samples were sent to his lab on the first day of their work. The lab has only two DNA sequencers and five staff and they worked 24 hours to collect data from the samples.

To confirm identification, samples are required from direct relatives -- parents or children -- to match DNA data. But some victims had only one or no direct relatives, so investigators contacted siblings for DNA sequence analysis, explains Mao. It took a week to get the matching results.

"Our priority principle is to be extremely cautious and allow absolutely no mistakes," Mao says. "This is our responsibility to the victims as well as to the survivors."

About two weeks after the earthquake, families started to come to the lab to have blood tests for DNA matches as the nine funeral homes in the city that had posted photos of the coded bodies for relatives to identify.

"If the relative saw a family member, they took the poster and register with the funeral home and we would contact forensic services to take a blood test for DNA identification," says Liu, head of the Dujiangyan Funeral Home.

The DNA lab received 477 samples from earthquake victims and 313 samples from relatives. So far, 142 have been confirmed, Mao says. All of the collected DNA data of the earthquake victims are stored in the DNA database of China's Ministry of Public Security. Identification work is still going on as family members keep coming for DNA matching, Mao says.

The DNA data of four victims caught Mao's eye. They found from the data the four were related: a grandmother and grandson and two siblings. That was Xue Yuchao's family.

To guard against mistakes, the government ordered that family members must claim the ashes with DNA reports from the police.

It was not until after the Chinese New Year in February this year that Xue finally got the ashes of his family after he submitted the DNA report, his identification and proof of his relation to the dead.

There are still some 60 ashes of unidentified earthquake victims resting in Dujiangyan Funeral Home.

According to the city's cremation regulation, crematorium can dispose ashes of anonymous bodies if they are not claimed with 30 days.

"But right now we are keeping all the unclaimed ashes because we are still waiting for policies from the civil affairs bureau about how to handle the ashes of the victims," Liu Liangzhi, the head of the funeral home says.

The DNA identification work is still going on as family members come for DNA testing, Mao Jiong says. "All the data we collected is in the database of the Ministry of Public Security, and relatives can come at any time to test for DNA matching."

Meanwhile, Xue has organized three tombs. Because his brother died holding Xue's son, he put them together in one tomb. He borrowed the amount of over 6,000 yuan to buy the plots, in a cemetery close to Dujiangyan city.

"I had to find a place for them to rest," Xue says. "Now I can visit them often when I miss them."

Though Xue has not received the 5,000 yuan per death which the government had promised as compensation, he says he no longer cares.

"I lost my son and my relatives? Life is meaningless."

His only hope now that his second son, now 15, would be selected for schooling in Shanghai, the city designated by the central government to help Dujiangyan's reconstruction that takes a number of students to study each semester.

He admits that he's still angry about the shoddy building, but he doesn't want to complain or file a lawsuit.

"Life is unfair. I have no connections. I'm just too weak and too old to fight."

(Xinhua News Agency May 5, 2009)