A baby cries as his father waits for a landslide to clear as he treks from the village of Qingping to Hanwang on Friday.

When we saw trucks carrying relief supplies running day and night on the road and anxious people lining outside the donation stations to give blood, we shed tears of hope.

We wept and we were heartbroken because of the cruelty of nature and God's ruthlessness.

But we clearly know that tears do not mean weakness and cowardice. We felt sad for the people's suffering but we did not stop the pace of the rescue and reconstruction effort. Nature can shatter or even kill us, but we will never bow down and surrender to it!

On May 19, when sirens wailed throughout the country, we made the strongest voice in our vast silence: tears only make us stronger and we must not yield to the disaster. We will stand united and strong. We will build our new life on the ruins and use our beautiful new cities to commemorate our dear departed ones.

Zeng Ying

on blog.sina.com.cn

We "Mother Love in Action" group arrived in Mianzhu on Saturday, one of the hardest-hit areas in Sichuan. I and the vice president of the All-China Women's Federation, Mo Wenxiu, and other psychological experts visited some of the affected children and pregnant women in Mianzhu.

The children's optimism moves Yang Lan

The South Square of Mianzhu, accommodating over 8,000 people, has become one of the largest settlements of the quake victims. More than half of them are women and children. The youngest child is only three months old. There is an urgent need of water, milk bottles, milk powder and other babycare equipment. In Mianzhu, daytime temperatures have risen to 29 C and it is even hotter in the relief tents. Coupled with poor sanitary conditions, some children have developed eczema. There is also a shortage of children's clothing.

We felt very encouraged by the children affected by the earthquake, who were not as overwhelmed by fear or sadness as we thought. Many we encountered told us that when they grow up, they want to join the People's Liberation Army or become a police officer so that they could help other people at times of danger. They take care of each other. The older ones look after the younger ones. Some 14-year-olds even volunteered to help the adults carry water, food and other supplies and take care of the tents. They were brave, strong and optimistic. Their strong characters and willingness to help others in hardship moved us greatly.

The main purpose of our visit is to have an understanding of the situation of the affected children as well as their psychological conditions so that we can develop a long term and sustainable plan of the psychological rehabilitation for them. We've collected much information and we were touched by the scenes we saw and the stories we heard.

Yang Lan, famous TV hostess

on blog.sina.com.cn