Silence enveloped the corridors of the earthquake patients rehabilitation centre at Sichuan University's West China Hospital in Chengdu late one afternoon. It was punctuated only by the sounds from a physiotherapy room, where a few patients were practising walking or doing body-strengthening exercises.
Inside a ward on the second floor, a little girl was putting together a Fuwa jigsaw puzzle. Sitting on a chair, three-year-old Xinyi looked a picture of concentration, seemingly oblivious to any outside distractions, though from time to time she managed a smile for the two nurses accompanying her.
A closer look, however, revealed that her right leg was fitted with a prosthesis.
The little girl was saved by the protection of her parents under the rubble in Beichuan , which was levelled by the May 12 quake. Sadly, her parents didn't make it.
'I didn't tell her anything, but one day she suddenly uttered: 'Father and mother are dead.' I don't know if she truly understands what it means,' said her uncle, Song Gang , as he glimpsed inside the ward where the little girl was staying. 'She's very afraid of talking to strangers or sleeping at night ... I think I will only tell her everything when she grows up a bit,' he added.
For many quake victims like Xinyi, the road to rehabilitation - both physical and psychological - is long and winding. Indeed, for many, the long battle has just started - four months after the devastating quake that killed more than 80,000 people and injured a further 370,000.
