An amazing miracle

After 16 Days, a Cry From the Ruins: 'Sir, Please Help Me!'

When the walls crumbled around her into mountains of broken concrete and twisted steel, Reshma Akter Begum fell and fell and fell.

Where one second she had been on the third floor, she now found herself in a basement prayer room that would prove her sanctuary and her salvation.

Over the next 16 days and seven hours in the often sweltering, pitch-black room, three other people she had worked with in the eight-story factory building died one by one.

A bright spot in the aftermath

With China quake toll rising, an unexpected rescue

CHENGDU, China: As the death toll in the earthquake last week in southwestern China continued to rise - exceeding 40,000, with tens of thousands still missing - the state media reported Tuesday that 129 students and 10 teachers had been rescued in an isolated town in Sichuan Province.