SONS OF GOD AGAINST WHITEFACE

Amazon Indians who have never had contact with the world have been spotted in the Amazon’s western jungle near the border between Brazil and Peru. The tribe was sighted in an Ethno-Environmental Protected Area over the Brazilian state of Acre, the National Foundation of the Indigenous People (Funai) said on Thursday.

The tribe was photographed from the air, and images released on Thursday showed tribal members painted bright red, some of them preparing to fire arrows at the aircraft. "These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist," Survival International director Stephen Corry said.


"The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct," he said.


Brazil's government agreed to release stunning photos of Amazon Indians firing arrows at an airplane so that the world can better understand the threats facing one of the few tribes still living in near-total isolation from civilization, officials said Friday.

Anthropologists have known about the group for some 20 years but released the images now to call attention to fast-encroaching development near the Indians' home in the dense jungles near Peru.

"We put the photos out because if things continue the way they are going, these people are going to disappear," said Jose Carlos Meirelles, who coordinates government efforts to protect four "uncontacted" tribes for Brazil's National Indian Foundation.

Shot in late April and early May, the foundation's photos show about a dozen Indians, mostly naked and painted red, wielding bows and arrows outside six grass-thatched huts.

Meirelles told The Associated Press in a phone interview that anthropologists know next to nothing about the group, but suspect it is related to the Tano and Aruak tribes.

Brazil's National Indian Foundation believes there may be as many as 68 "uncontacted" groups around Brazil, although only 24 have been officially confirmed.

Anthropologists say almost all of these tribes know about western civilization and have sporadic contact with prospectors, rubber tappers and loggers, but choose to turn their backs on civilization, usually because they have been attacked.

"It's a choice they made to remain isolated or maintain only occasional contacts, but these tribes usually obtain some modern goods through trading with other Indians," said Bernardo Beronde, an anthropologist who works in the region.

Brazilian officials once tried to contact such groups. Now they try to protectively isolate them.

The four tribes monitored by Meirelles include perhaps 500 people who roam over an area of about 1.6 million acres (630,000 hectares).

He said that over the 20 years he has been working in the area, the number of "malocas," or grass-roofed huts, has doubled, suggesting that the policy of isolation is working and that populations are growing.

Remaining isolated, however, gets more complicated by the day.

Loggers are closing in on the Indians' homeland — Brazil's environmental protection agency said Friday it had shut down 28 illegal sawmills in Acre state, where these tribes are located. And logging on the Peruvian border has sent many Indians fleeing into Brazil, Meirelles said.

"On the Brazilian side we don't have logging yet, but I'd like to emphasize the 'yet,'" he said.

A new road being paved from Peru into Acre will likely bring in hordes of poor settlers. Other Amazon roads have led to 30 miles (50 kilometers) of rain forest being cut down on each side, scientists say.

While "uncontacted" Indians often respond violently to contact — Meirelles caught an arrow in the face from some of the same Indians in 2004 — the greater threat is to the Indians.

"First contact is often completely catastrophic for "uncontacted" tribes. It's not unusual for 50 percent of the tribe to die in months after first contact," said Miriam Ross, a campaigner with the Indian rights group Survival International. "They don't generally have immunity to diseases common to outside society. Colds and flu that aren't usually fatal to us can completely wipe them out."

Survival International estimates about 100 tribes worldwide have chosen to avoid contact, but said the only truly uncontacted tribe is the Sentinelese, who live on North Sentinel island off the coast of India and shoot arrows at anyone who comes near.

Last year, the Metyktire tribe, with about 87 members, was discovered in a densely jungled portion of the 12.1-million-acre (4.9-million-hectare) Menkregnoti Indian reservation in the Brazilian Amazon, when two of its members showed up at another tribe's village.

MANCHESTER IS THE WINNER!

Man Utd are Euro kings. CRISTIANO RONALDO is waking up a Champions League winner and it is Chelsea´s John Terry left in bits.
When Ronaldo’s nervy third penalty for Manchester in a dramatic shootout was saved by Petr Cech, the double Footballer of the Year have destroyed a brilliant season. With Chelsea hammering in their first four penalties, lionheart defender Terry was one kick away from the greatest moment of his career. All Terry had to do was put the ball in the net from 12 yards and the cup with the big ears would be the Londoners’ for the first time in their history. His shot skewed off the outside of United keeper Edwin Van der Sar’s left post and agonisingly wide.


The kicks then went to sudden death and, after Anderson and Salomon Kalou had scored, Ryan Giggs coolly slotted home on his record-breaking 759th United appearance to make it 6-5. Nicolas Anelka had to score to keep the Blues alive but his kick was superbly saved by the veteran Van der Sar diving to his right. Cue mayhem in the United end where the penalties were taken, as the players raced to engulf their Dutch hero. They were minus only a mightily relieved Ronaldo, who was lying face down on the halfway line with his emotions having got the better of him. Manager Alex Ferguson danced a jig as he celebrated a second Champions League success to go with that of 1999 and another magnificent Double.

Maybe it was always meant to be that United should succeed 50 years after the Munich air disaster. Meanwhile, emotions of a different kind were overwhelming the Chelsea players. Terry was inconsolable. No player should have to go through the pain he suffered. It will be carnage at Chelsea with manager Avram Grant probably losing his job and the likes of striker Didier Drogba leaving the club.This final never looked like it would go to penalties, because United so dominated the first half they should have been out of sight by half-time.

United took the lead on 26 minutes. Wes Brown combined with Paul Scholes, Scholes’ genius unlocked the space for Brown on the right and his deep cross found Ronaldo, who climbed high above a static Michael Essien to head into the corner for his 42nd goal of the season.

Right on half-time, Chelsea were back in it. Essien’s drive hit Vidic and Ferdinand before bouncing obligingly across to Lampard, who clipped a left-foot effort past Van der Sar. Lampard raced away and raised both arms to the heavens, where his mum Pat, who died so tragically only a month ago, was looking down and willing her boy on. But United have been England’s best team this season. They thoroughly deserve their reward.


EDWIN VAN DER SAR erased 12 years of pain with his shoot-out heroics in Manchester United's Champions League triumph. The keeper saved Nicolas Anelka's sudden-death penalty before Ryan Giggs tucked home United's decisive spot-kick. And Dutchman revealed that clinching the Double has quelled the agony of losing on penalties with Ajax in the 1996 final. He said: "Twelve years ago I lost on penalties and we've won it now.
"It's unbelievable. We deserve it. It's fantastic."

RYAN GIGGS hailed the "best night of his life" after clinching Manchester United's Champions League shoot-out glory. Giggs said: "I think the first half we dominated and they had their chances in the second half. "But we held our nerve and it was the best night of my life."


This one is for the Babes: ALEX FERGUSON dedicated Manchester United’s dramatic Champions League triumph to the memory of the Busby Babes. United lifted the trophy last night 50 years after the Munich air disaster which cost 23 lives, including eight of Sir Matt Busby’s famous team. Instead an emotional Sir Bobby Charlton led the United team up the steps at the Luzhniki Stadium to receive the trophy. He was one of 5 players who survived Munich watching in the stadium last night.

And Ferguson, who also guided United to Euro glory in 1999, admitted: “It was such an emotional occasion. I said the day before the game we would not let the memory of the Busby Babes down. “And fate played its hand even in John Terry slipping. We had a cause and people with causes become difficult people to play against. “I think fate was playing its hand today. “I feel very, very proud, sometimes you have to pinch yourself. But tomorrow morning I’ll be thinking about next season. “The euphoria evaporates quickly. When you win something like this you have to look at the players the following year and make sure the hunger is still there.

“But the young players who enjoy an experience like they did here will want to do it again. “Defending the trophy is not easy. But some of the players here will improve and I hope we can defend it. They are good enough.” He revealed: “I spoke to a few people afterwards and they said it was fantastic and I’m pleased about that. “I have watched many finals and some are not good because of the pressure. But this was pretty open.”


Fergie added: “It would have been so unfair to Ronaldo if that penalty miss had cost us after the season he has had. “I thought he was fantastic tonight. When he had the ball you always felt something was going to happen. I thought it was a marvellous performance.” Ferguson said of Van der Sar: “The most difficult job we had was replacing Peter Schmeichel and we did that three years ago with Edwin. “That was not an accident that save. We knew where certain players were putting the ball, so great credit to him. “When it came to the last penalty he used his experience to wait that fraction. It’s my first victory in penalty shootouts, apart from Charity Shields which you don’t count — I lost three with Aberdeen and three with United but it was seventh time lucky.”


Hero Van der Sar said: “I won a final in 1995 with Ajax and then lost one on penalties with Ajax the next season. It is all about quality strikes from our players and then you hope to save one. “We were lucky with the slip from Terry or it would have been all over.”

RUN, BABY, RUN

South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius said Saturday that he cried after hearing he had won a landmark appeal to compete against able-bodies athletes for a place in the Beijing Olympics.

"I was just blown away when I found out," he told South Africa's Star newspaper.

"When they told me, I cried. It is a battle that has been going on for far too long. It's a great day for sport.


"I think this day is going to go down in history for the equality of disabled people," he continued.

The 21-year-old, who runs on specially-adapted carbon fibre blades after having his legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old, saw a ban imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Friday.


The 400m runner had been barred from all competitions involving able-bodied athletes because of claims that the artificial legs he uses give him an unfair advantage.

He has vowed to pursue his dream to qualify for the Olympic Games.

Many commenters have expressed disbelief in the wake of Friday’s decision to overturn the International Association of Athletics Federations’ ban against the double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius. What some of them seem to have missed was the reasoning behind the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s unanimous decision: that the scientific analysis suggesting Pistorius gained an advantage from his prostheses was fundamentally flawed. The centerpiece of the I.A.A.F.’s case against Pistorius was the analysis of his prosthetics commissioned last November. The I.A.A.F. spent more than $50,000 to sponsor two days of tests under the supervision of Dr. Peter Brüggemann at the German Sport University in Cologne, Germany.


Brüggemann’s conclusion was that the Cheetahs Pistorius uses as prostheses were more efficient than a human ankle. He also found that they could return energy in maximum speed sprinting and that Pistorius was able to keep up with a few able-bodied sprinters while expending about 25 percent less energy. Based on Brüggemann’s report, the I.A.A.F. decided that Pistorius would not be allowed to compete.


But, according to the opinion of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, that’s when “the process began to go ‘off the rails.’ ” The panel believed that the study was deeply flawed: “The correspondence between the I.A.A.F. and Prof. Brüggemann shows that his instructions were to carry out the testing only when Mr. Pistorius was running in a straight line after the acceleration phase. By the time that the I.A.A.F. commissioned the Cologne tests it was known that this was the part of the race in which Mr. Pistorius ran at his fastest.” The court deemed that this was enough to distort any perception of Pistorius’s possible advantages relative to able-bodied runners.


Still, the court recognized that Pistorius defied running orthodoxy by running faster splits in the second and third 100 meters of a 400-meter race, whereas able-bodied runners traditionally run a quicker first and second 100 meters.

But most important, the court emphasized that the ruling is extremely narrowly tailored and that future decisions on the matter will be made on a case-by-case basis:

“The panel’s decision has absolutely no application to any other athlete, or other type of prosthetic limb. Each case must be considered by the I.A.A.F. on its own merits. The ruling does not grant a blanket license to other single or double amputees to compete in I.A.A.F.-sanctioned events using Cheetah Flex-Foot Prosthetics or indeed any other type of prosthesis.”


And the ruling hardly gives Pistorius carte blanche. The panel did not rule out the chance that, “with future advances in scientific knowledge, and a testing regime designed and carried out to the satisfaction of both parties, the I.A.A.F. might in the future be in a position to prove that the existing Cheetah Flex-Foot model provides Mr. Pistorius with an overall net advantage over other athletes.”

The court, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is an independent institution which, according to its web site, has almost 300 arbitrators from 87 countries.

PC GAMES

Interpol said Thursday that computer files suggesting Venezuela was arming and financing Colombian guerrillas came from a rebel camp and were not tampered with, discrediting Venezuela's assertions that Colombia faked them.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced the Interpol verdict as "ridiculous," saying a "clown show" surrounded the announcement. But the findings are sure to increase pressure on Chavez to explain his ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

More revelations are likely to emerge, as Interpol also turned over to Colombia 983 files it decrypted.

"We are absolutely certain that the computer exhibits that our experts examined came from a FARC terrorist camp," said Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, adding: "No one can ever question whether or not the Colombian government tampered with the seized FARC computers."

Chavez did just that, calling Noble "a tremendous actor" and an "immoral police officer who applauds killers."

"Do you think we should waste time here on something so ridiculous?" Chavez told reporters. He denies arming or funding the FARC — though he openly sympathizes with Latin America's most powerful rebel army — and threatened on Thursday to scale back economic ties with Colombia over the incident.

Colombian commandos recovered the three Toshiba Satellite laptop computers, two external hard drives and three USB memory sticks in a March 1 cross-border raid into Ecuador that killed FARC foreign minister Raul Reyes and 24 others.

Interpol addressed Chavez charges that no computer could have survived the bombardment, showing photographs in the report and video on its Web site of metal cases that protected them from Colombian bombs.

The Interpol study was done at Colombia's request, Interpol ran 10 computers nonstop for two weeks to crack the encrypted files. Interpol also gave Colombia a separate confidential report for use in criminal investigations.

"The only thing Colombia wants is that the terrorism we have so suffered does not affect our brother countries," he said Thursday night in Peru after arriving for a summit at which Chavez was also expected. Terrorism doesn't have borders or ethics."

The 39-page public forensic report by the France-based international police agency concluded Colombian authorities did not always follow internationally accepted methods for handling computer evidence, but said that didn't taint the data.

Interpol said it reviewed 610 gigabytes of data including 210,888 images, 37,872 written documents, 22,481 Web pages, 10,537 sound and video files, 7,989 e-mail addresses and 452 spreadsheets.

Interpol limited itself to verifying whether Colombia altered the files and correctly handled the evidence, but did not address the contents of the documents, even making a point to use two forensic experts — from Australia and Singapore — who do not read Spanish.

A Colombian anti-terrorism officer accessed the computers before they were handed over to Interpol, leaving multiple traces in operating system files, which Noble said runs against internationally accepted protocol. But Colombian authorities properly told Interpol's experts about the episode and Noble praised their professionalism.

Noble said he tried to get Chavez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, whom the documents also link to the FARC, to work with Interpol in its investigation, but neither responded.

"I've done everything in my power to invite Venezuela and Ecuador to participate," said Noble, a former U.S. Treasury enforcement chief in his second term heading the 186-member police organization.

Colombia has been leaking details from the documents since the day after the raid. The most damning evidence against Chavez was revealed to The Associated Press last week by a senior Colombian official.

More than a dozen rebel messages detail close cooperation with Venezuela, including rebel training facilities on Venezuelan soil and a meeting inside Venezuela's equivalent of the Pentagon. They suggest Venezuela wanted to loan the rebels US$250 million (euro190 million) and help them get Russian weapons and possibly even surface-to-air missiles.

"They are serious allegations about Venezuela supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

"Certainly, that has deep implications for the people of the region."

Some U.S. Republicans renewed calls Thursday for the State Department to add Venezuela to its list of state terror sponsors, which would prompt economic sanctions against a key U.S. oil supplier.

SPANISH TERROR

Basque separatists bombed a village police barracks housing officers and their families on Wednesday, killing one and wounding four. Spain's government described it as an attempted massacre.

In the first fatal attack blamed on the militant separatist group ETA in more than two months, the pre-dawn car bombing in the Basque village of Legutiano in northern Spain blew off part of the building's roof, raining down debris and trapping people inside.

The assailants used a large amount of explosives at the building with 29 people inside, including five children, some of them babies, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

The group "has failed in its attack because it had planned to cause a massacre, although it did not fail completely because it killed an innocent person who was just doing his job," he said after visiting the barracks in Legutiano, a village of 1,500 near the regional capital, Vitoria.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called the attack "cowardly, despicable and criminal."

ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in March 2006, but reverted to violence in a matter of months when peace talks with government stalled. Since then it has staged more than 20 attacks, including several in recent weeks in the Basque region and neighboring Navarra.

At least two people were trapped in the rubble, including the dead Civil Guard officer. Another officer was pulled out with injuries. Three other Civil Guards also were wounded.

Zapatero traveled later to Vitoria to attend the slain officer's wake. Town halls across Spain planned to observe five minutes of silence at noon Thursday.

"I can assure you that democracy will defeat terror," Zapatero told parliament before leaving Madrid. "Freedom will defeat murderous fanaticism."



The dead officer was identified as Juan Manuel Pinuel Villalon, 41, who was married and had a 6-year-old son. He had been posted at the barracks for only two months.

Before Wednesday's car bombing, the last fatal attack by ETA was the shooting of a former town councilor in the Basque town of Mondragon on March 7, two days before Spain's general election.

The Basque group, which is fighting to carve out an independent homeland in lands straddling Spain and France, ended its cease-fire in December 2006 after failing to win concessions in peace talks with the Socialist government.

The death toll since then stands at six, including Wednesday's fatality. ETA has killed more than 820 people since launching its campaign of bombings and shootings in the late 1960s.

The government, which was caught off guard by the 2006 blast, launched an intense crackdown on ETA members, arresting dozens and suspending two pro-ETA nationalist parties.

Lawmakers from all parties put aside their bitter differences over how to deal with ETA and issued a joint statement condemning the attack.

King Juan Carlos described the bombing as “repulsive” and observed a minute’s silence during a military ceremony.



Javier Balza, the Basque region’s interior minister, said Wednesday’s blast “harkened back to images of attacks in the old days of this terrorist group,” a reference to the 1980s, when ETA carried out large-scale attacks that killed many civilians. One bombing at a police barracks in Zaragoza in 1987 killed 11 people, including 5 children.

The group broke off a nine-month cease-fire 17 months ago with a huge car bomb that killed two men at Madrid’s Barajas airport, effectively ending a flailing peace process launched by Mr. Zapatero, the prime minister. Since then, the group has carried out a series of small bombings — most of which caused little damage — and in December killed two Spanish policemen in a confrontation in France.

ETA cast a grim shadow over Spain’s March 9 parliamentary election when, 48 hours before the vote, it shot dead a former Socialist councilman in the Basque town of Arrasate.

YELLOW APOCALYPSIS

The number of dead in China's earthquake climbed past 12,000 on Tuesday with the toll expect to soar further after state media said nearly 19,000 people were buried under rubble in one city alone.

Rain hampered rescue efforts in the mountainous area around the epicenter of Monday's 7.9-magnitude quake that jolted the southwestern province of Sichuan, the country's worst earthquake in three decades.


State media reported scenes of devastation as rescuers gradually filed into villages near the epicenter in Wenchuan, a remote county cut off by landslides about 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the provincial capital, Chengdu.

An advance squad of more than 30 People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops arrived at Wenchuan's Yingxiu township and rescued 300 injured residents, Xinhua news agency said.
Only 2,000 were found alive in the town of 12,000, according to He Biao, a local official.


"They could hear people under the debris calling for help, but no one could, because there were no professional rescue teams," state television quoted He as saying.

About 60,000 people were unaccounted for in Wenchuan, where 600 armed police were due to arrive before dawn on Wednesday.

"What we most need is medicine. There is no medicine, there are no doctors and after such a long time, no food," He said.



More than 12,000 people died in Sichuan and more than 26,000 were injured, Sichuan vice-governor Chengyun said.

A further 18,645 people were buried under debris in the city of Mianyang, Xinhua said, suggesting the death toll was likely to rise sharply.

Thousands were reported to be buried under factories, schools and other buildings elsewhere. Hundreds more have died in neighboring provinces.



Li said several reservoirs upstream of the Min river, a tributary of the Yangtze flowing through the quake-hit region, were "in a very dangerous status and the dams may burst."

Flood relief authorities had ordered officials to "thoroughly inspect and remove hidden dangers of dams," Xinhua said. Landslides had blocked the path of a river in Sichuan's neighboring province of Gansu.

Officials have warned that more powerful aftershocks could hit the region and mudslides could add to the toll.

A strong aftershock rocked Chengdu on Tuesday, one of 2,354 in the province over the past day, unnerving residents.

More than 50,000 troops joined disaster relief efforts or were advancing to the area. Thousands were ordered to parachute into Wenchuan, where rain and clouds had prevented military helicopters from landing.


Visiting Premier Wen Jiabao ordered troops to clear roads to Wenchuan. "Please speed up the shipping of food. The kids have nothing to eat now," Wen said amid crying children.

In Dujiangyan -- about midway between Chengdu and the epicenter -- bodies lined streets and residents cradled possessions in front of homes reduced to piles of rubble.

Rescuers worked through the night, pulling bodies from ruined buildings after the earthquake, which rolled from Sichuan across China and was felt as far away as Bangkok and Hanoi.

About 900 teenagers were buried under a collapsed three-storey school building. Frantic relatives tried to push past a line of soldiers, desperate for news of their children.

"We're still pulling out people alive, but many, many have died," said one medical worker.

Eleven tourists suspended in a gondola over a gorge in northern Sichuan's scenic Jiuzhaigou area were brought to safety after being trapped for nearly 24 hours.

A group of 19 British tourists were missing near the epicenter after traveling by coach to Wolong, a large panda reserve. Phone lines to the area were cut.

China said that there had been no reports of foreign casualties by midday (0400 GMT).

The quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan tremor in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died.


China's benchmark stock index ended down on Tuesday and trading in the shares of 66 companies was suspended.

Analysts said they did not expect serious economic effects from the disaster but supply shortages could fuel inflation, already at a near 12-year high.

The State Administration of Grain ordered local governments to ensure grain and cooking oil supplies and price stability.

Offers of aid have come from around the world after the disaster, which occurred three months before the Beijing Olympics.


Olympic officials assured foreigners the country was safe. A minute's silence would start each stop of the domestic torch relay and celebrations would be scaled down.

The International Olympic Committee said it would donate $1 million and the United Nations also offered support.

The children who were considered fortunate escaped with a broken bone or a severed limb. The others, hundreds of them, were carried out to be buried, and their remaining classmates lay crushed beneath the rubble of the schoolhouse.


“There’s no hope for them,” said Lu Zhiqing, 58, as she watched uniformed rescue workers trudge through mud and rain toward the mound of bricks and concrete that had once been a school. “There’s no way anyone’s still alive in there.”

Little remained of the original structure of the school. No standing beams, no fragments of walls. The rubble lay low against the wet earth. Dozens of people gathered around in the schoolyard, clawing at the debris, kicking it, screaming at it. Soldiers kept others from entering.

A man and woman walked away from the rubble together. He sheltered her under an umbrella as she wailed, “My child is dead! Dead!”

As dawn crept across this shattered town on Tuesday, it illuminated rows and rows of apartment blocks collapsed into piles, bodies wedged among the debris, homeless families and their neighbors clustered on the roadside, shielding themselves from the downpour with plastic tarps.

The earthquake originated here in the lush farm fields and river valleys of Sichuan Province, killing almost 10,000 people and trapping thousands more.

One of the most jarring tragedies of the disaster was the school collapse in a suburb of Dujiangyan. At least several hundred children were killed, perhaps as many as 900. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao flew here on Monday to survey the destruction, but he was powerless to ease the suffering of the survivors.


In the center of town, a woman said she had called local government officials 10 times to plead for help in rescuing her son and mother, but no one had come.

So on Tuesday morning, she stood crying before the remains of her apartment building. Her 5-month-old son was still buried in there, as was her 56-year-old mother.

“I was outside when the earthquake hit,” said the woman, Wang Xiaoni, 26. “I ran back even while the ground was still shaking.”


She shook her head. “Who’s going to help them now?”

People wandered up and down the street taking photos with cell phones and digital cameras. “This isn’t even the worst-off area,” one man said.

One block over, the façade of a white six-story residential building had sheared off, leaving one side of the apartments open to the air. Each living room had a television set untouched by the earthquake. But in the cascade of rubble at the foot of the building, a lifeless head and arm stuck out of the debris, and another body could be seen on the other side of the mound of rubble.

Across the street, a young man and his older sister walked out of an apartment building with a red duffel bag and armloads of bedding they stacked on the sidewalk.

“Everything in the apartment was destroyed,” said the man, Ji Yongtao, 27, waving a hand up at the second floor. “We need to find a place to live. We’ll spend the night in a building that was recently built, or on the first floor somewhere. We’re not going back up there.”

Dozens of people had gathered on the sidewalk by a major intersection down the street. They were constructing a huge tent, pulling a tarp over upright wooden poles they had lashed together. This would be their home for the day, and maybe the night, and maybe the next few days and nights.

Busloads of soldiers rode past in the street. But there was no immediate help for the people.

“We left with nothing but the clothes we’re wearing,” said Hu Huojin, 38, cradling her 6-year-old son in her arms. “We don’t dare stay in our homes. We’ll return when we’re told it’s safe to go back. Otherwise, we don’t dare live there.”

She gazed out at the wet street.

“I can’t even remember how long the ground shook,” she said. “It was enormous.”

An elderly couple stood under a store awning on the edge of the tent village. The man held the family dog, Chou Mer, but they had not seen their son, a cab driver, since he left home hours before the earthquake.

“We still haven’t heard from him,” said the mother, Yang Limei, 58. “Last night, we kept calling him, but we couldn’t get through. I don’t know what to do. We can’t even wait for him at home.”

Her husband, Chui Xianchao, 63, said, “The walls are still standing, but everything else fell to the ground.”

Ambulances roared by on the way to the hospitals in Chengdu, the provincial capital. Another bus rolled past carrying soldiers.

The army had appropriated public buses throughout the region, and men wearing green fatigues peered out the windows at the homeless in the street.

“No one’s come to help us yet,” Mr. Chui said. “Those soldiers are going somewhere else.”

A few miles to the south, in front of the collapsed school, a half-dozen soldiers linked hands to form a human blockade in front of the rubble. Two women tried to push their way through. The soldiers did not budge.

“There are still children in there, and we can’t help them if you keep trying to get in,” one soldier said.

The only people allowed in were teams of rescue workers and doctors. A group of doctors in white lab coats sat in a bus, waiting their turn to help. Some slept. They said no one had been brought out alive in hours.