Students remember 1,300 lost friends
Gan Hongjie lingers around a large grassy area where, just minutes before, the opening ceremony of Beichuan No 1 Middle School's new term took place.
Missing from it were more than 1,300 fellow students who perished when the school collapsed 31/2 months ago, and among them was his 18-year-old brother. 'I always think about him,' says Hongjie, 16, lowering his head.
The youthful face displays little emotion when asked about his suffering, yet the ordeal is written all over his body. His left leg was amputated and he has a deep red scar on his right arm.
'I don't even know when I will be fitted for prosthesis because my wound still hasn't fully recovered yet,' says the once-avid basketball player, who also lost his grandfather in the 8-magnitude quake on May 12.
Indeed, the road leading to the makeshift classrooms on the campus, which is now located at the Changhong training centre at Mianyang, in Sichuan province , might be just a short distance away, but it looks like a huge challenge for Hongjie to get there on crutches.
