China survivors dazed and fearful after quake

By Ben Blanchard

DUJIANGYAN, China (Reuters) - If Zhang Zhiyin had hesitated only a minute, he wouldn't be alive today.

Now he wanders through the rainy streets of Dujiangyan, hoping to find friends who survived Monday's earthquake that leveled his school and much of this Chinese town.

"We had just finished lunch and were getting ready to go back to class. As soon as I left the building, everything started shaking," Zhang told Reuters. "I don't know how many of my friends are alive."

The 7.9 magnitude quake, whose epicenter was about 50 km away, buried an estimated 900 teenagers at Zhang's school.

"I've been wandering around town ever since. I don't know where to go or what to do," he said.

Some 10,000 were feared dead in the disaster centered in China's Sichuan province and whose force rippled across the country.

Troops surrounded Zhang's school, keeping frantic relatives back from rescuers working to free people from the rubble of the three-storey building.

"My child, my child!" cried one woman, grabbing at a soldier and pleading with him to be allowed past the security cordon.