Sketches by Guillermo Munro / China Daily; Based on photos by Jiang Dong and Erik Nilsson / China Daily

New homes, babies and opportunities are transforming the Wenchuan quake zone. Liu Xiangrui and Huang Zhiling report in Yingxiu, Beichuan and Qingchuan in Sichuan.

To the rescue, again and again

Yang Yunqing is often invited to pose for group photos in front of his Epicenter Restaurant in the Sichuan quake zone.

The eatery's name isn't the only reference to how its history and that of its 63-year-old founder relate to the 8.0-magnitude temblor that left 90,000 dead or missing in 2008.

The walls are covered with photos snapped by a news photographer of Yang dashing among ruins in Wenchuan county's Yingxiu town, pulling children out of the rubble. These images made Yang a celebrity when they appeared in the news.

It was a turning point in Yang's life, he says.

He has given up his previous occupation as a crane operator to join the local firefighting team - things he never imagined he would do. But it's his outlook on life that has transformed the most, he says.

Yang sometimes returns to those days in his dreams or when he's alone. "Sometimes, those scenes play in front of my eyes," he says. "I remember what the children looked like when they were saved - or weren't."

Yang and his youngest son, who also operated cranes, volunteered to help with the rescue and used their cranes to lift the larger parts of collapsed buildings.

Yang pulled two students to safety and assisted firefighters to rescue another 10 at the collapsed Yingxiu Primary School, which was right next to his house. Hundreds of students were buried when the school buckled.

Yang recalls the principal begging him: "Save my students!" He told her to calm down and count the children.

When Yang discovered only cranes could lift some heavy parts of the building, he rushed to the local power station to borrow two. His cranes were damaged in the quake.

Yang could only think of the hundreds of trapped children and instantly dropped to his knees to beg the station's chief to let him and his son use the cranes. The chief eventually agreed.

"We wanted to save as many children as we could," Yang says. "The ones we couldn't save - I would have felt better if we could have delivered their bodies to their parents intact."

Yang slept fewer than four hours a day for the next nine days. He developed friendships with firefighters from Shanghai and Shandong province while working with them. He says their "bravery and iron will" impressed him.

"We call each other 'quake friends'," Yang says, smiling.

They stay in regular contact.

But Yang endured severe depression after the quake.

"I felt exhausted when the rescue ended," he recalls. "Suddenly, I had no idea what to do next."

The disaster killed Yang's wife and grandson, and 10 members of his brothers' families.

"We gathered for a dinner the night before, and the next day we were all separated," he says in a murmur, while holding a family photo.

Yang had owned a restaurant, two sand pits, two cranes and a house before the disaster. He lost 40 years of earnings, worth 2 million yuan ($320,000), in seconds. His son, Yang Hejian, says: "I never see my father complain about the losses. He never talks about difficulties in front of the family."

His wife, 49-year-old Liu Mingyu, says: "He told me we must help ourselves, rather than solely rely on the government."

Liu first saw Yang on TV and online. Friends introduced her, and the couple married in 2009.

Yang turned down his "quake friends'" invitations to move to Shanghai, where they promised to help him find a job. But he did accept their invitation to visit.

Yang fixed his cranes and joined the reconstruction. He says it was not only about reconstructing buildings but also restoring psyches. "We got to walk away from the darkness," he says. "As survivors, we must carry on with our lives."

Yang reopened his restaurant with Liu, renaming it "Epicenter", in their prefab shelter when he realized many outside visitors didn't have anywhere to eat.

Yang also declined the Shanghai firefighting department's offer of a free crane and advised them to instead give a pumper to Yingxiu. He joined in the local firefighting department later. His firefighting duties include driving the pumper, and dealing with traffic accidents and other emergencies.

He has left his restaurant to his son, so he can focus more on his work. The family has a 20,000-yuan debt after moving into a new house. Yang earns about 1,500 yuan a month.

"But I'm not worried," he says. "I think the future is bright."

Li Yu in Chengdu contributed to this story.