Workers help local residents to recharge their mobile phones and batteries at a mobile charging station after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Lushan county, Yaan city, southwest Chinas Sichuan province, 23 April 2013. Chinese and UN data. Along Chonglu Road, which cuts through the heart of the worst-affected area in Sichuans Lushan county, hundreds of tents have been erected in front of piles of debris that were once orderly rows of homes. Many of the displaced headed for the relative safety of Lushans densely populated centre, spending their nights outdoors in sleeping bags on the grassy mounds surrounding Lushan Peoples Hospital. But others have not left the rubble where their destroyed homes once stood, and instead sleep in tents they have erected themselves by using sticks and canvas, or in bright blue shelters provided by relief agencies. The rescue and relief effort has been hampered by the region's forbidding landscape, with high-altitude roads blocked by boulders and landslides and emergency workers in fear of further sudden slippages. The Peoples Liberation Army has used helicopters to airdrop supplies including bottled water and instant noodles to survivors in Lushan, the official Xinhua news agency reported. But state-run media have reported severe shortages of essential goods in many of the affected counties that together with Lushan lie within YaAn city. China News Service said that in Tianquan county, victims are in desperate need of water, food, quilts and medicine.
