Before permanent structures can be rebuilt, thousands of tons of concrete and metal, bricks and class must be sorted, broken down and hauled away. For now, like everywhere else in the earthquake zone, Dujiangyan residents are living in Red Cross tent camps.

I came across a team of constructions workers on their lunch break. Everyday they labor with sledge hammers, working to break up the rubble into pieces small enough to load onto trucks. They told me they are farmers from the neighboring province of Shaanxi. They have been in Dujiangyang for a month – they arrived just twelve days after the earthquake – clearing rubble. They will return home in August, in time to help their families with this year’s harvest. They were bemused by my attention.

As the reconstruction process advances, workers separate out furniture that can be restored.

Near the pile of furniture, I saw a little girl and her father. At first, the two-year-old girl was wary of the foreigner taking her picture. When I gave her a white rabbit – a candy ubiquitous in China that tastes like a vanilla tootsie roll – she was pleased.