An operator busy recording news transmitted by radio from the disaster areas.

On the night of May 12 many people in Chengdu stayed outdoors or camped in the open air. Liu Hu continued his emergency frequency communications after he went home in the evening. Liu watched a seismograph while listening to the radio. "The building where I live is not well protected against shock – nearly all the residents of the building had fled. Communications and roads near the epicenter had been disrupted except for military short wave stations and maritime rescue telephones," said Liu Hu.

Liu Xu, also a head of the SARES, called an urgent session in the evening to establish a command center for organized emergency communications activities.

A relay station had been established by the Chengdu amateur radio emergency network after the snow disaster which hit southern China at the beginning of 2008. The relay station had been dislocated after the earthquake and its cables were twisted. "But fortunately it was still working. The station has network coverage over a diameter of 100 kilometers around Chengdu and Mianyang and it served us well in the quake relief campaign," said Liu Xu.

Ordinary folk broadcasting relief

Liu Hu was frantically busy after the earthquake, sometimes dealing with telephone and wireless calls at the same time. He had to keep manual track of relief instructions from the Radio Association of China, the Red Cross Society of Sichuan, and the Chengdu Red Cross Society, and then pass on information by short wave radio or through the vehicle control station set up by the emergency command center of the SARES.

Liu Xu was busy as well, first receiving a request for relief requirements from the Sichuan Communist Youth League volunteer group, then having to fetch a short wave station from another HAM member's home.

They were so busy that they barely had time to eat, a bowl of instant noodle and a few cookies being their food for the day.