The scene in Sichuan's Dujiangyan City was chaotic. At a pile of rubble that had been a residential building days before, the roar of cranes, frantic digging of soldiers and local residents eager to help brought the rescue efforts clearly into focus. There was only one objective here--to save lives and save them as fast as possible. A medical team stood by waiting.

A collapsed building at the Xingfu Xiaoqu residential complex in Dujiangyan.

The devastation had been caused by an earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, that struck Sichuan Province on the afternoon of May 12. Wenchuan County was at the epicenter of the quake. Dujiangyan is located nearby.

"There's a man alive. He's half buried under a big cement floor and his legs are broken," barked Liu Zheng, a police officer from a neighboring county. He told Beijing Review that efforts to rescue this man started one hour ago and it would take at least another half an hour to get him out.

"It's no easy a task," he said, and turned down this reporter's request to get closer to the scene as a nearby building was unstable and looked likely to collapse.

Near the rescue scene, Wang, a crane driver showed Beijing Review pictures of the half buried man that he had taken. The pictures showed a 20-something young man in red T-shirt with his body below the waist covered in bricks and cements. He looked terrified and there was blood on his face.

"I do hope he's all right," the driver said. Not far from the remains sat two medical workers wearing masks, with their eyes fixed on the rescue site, waiting. One of them said about eight dead bodies had been found in the remains of this building alone on the morning of May 14.

The streets of the city were busy. Trucks carrying aid, police cars, recovery vehicles and ambulances were in constant motion.

By the side of a broad street, Chen Guiqin, a 28-year-old bank official, sat with a trembling puppy in her arms. "You know what, I have begun to like the color blue. It makes me feel safe," she said . Behind her a long line of blue tents, all bearing the Chinese characters meaning "disaster relief," stretched into the distance.

A woman sits with her dog outside a tent given to her by the government as part of its relief work in Dujiangyan.

Chen used to live in the eastern part of the city with her family, but the earthquake had left her and her family homeless overnight. They had to sleep outdoors the first night until the next day when their new blue "home" arrived and kept them dry from the cold rain.

"I hate it so much to stay outside for the night. I think we owe a lot to those soldiers who gave us the tent and put it up for us" Chen spoke to her puppy as if it could understand. She told Beijing Review that while she and her family had fortunately survived the earthquake, many of the residents from her building were still buried in the debris.