Chinese county in sorrow: the bereaved mourn in Beichuan on quake anniversary

The mini house, a meter high, was named Jiuquan Mansion, meaning "house in the nether world." Wu Youde burned it for his wife, who was a doctor in Beichuan before the earthquake.

"Mom worked hard all her life. She deserves a good rest," said son Wu Tao, who followed his mother into medicine.

Wu tearfully hoped his mother would receive the house in heaven and live a relaxed life. Every time Beichuan was opened for public memorials, he came to burn paper items that he thought might be useful to his mother in the afterlife.

The ruins of the county have been reopened four times since the quake: 100 days after the disaster, at Spring Festival in January and again for Tomb-sweeping Festival on April 4. It was reopened on Sunday afternoon as the first anniversary approached.

More than 80 percent of the buildings in Beichuan collapsed during the quake and only 4,000 out of more than 10,000 then living in the county seat survived, according to local authorities.

More than half the county was buried by landslides and declared "unnecessary to be reconstructed", so the local government decided to transform this area into a "quake ruin museum." Some survivors have found business opportunities from it. Stalls selling quake-related videos, photos and embroidery, opened by Beichuan residents, stretched hundreds of meters outside the old county seat.