By Guo Nei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-17 09:00

When the deadly earthquake struck on Monday, hundreds of thousands of people immediately lost contact with loved ones.

Two sisters hug and cry after being reunited on Friday in Beichuan. [China Daily]

Now every survivor's top priority is to locate missing relatives and friends to make sure they're all safe.

Ge Jun, a student at Guangzhou's South China Normal University, hails from Beichuan, one of the worst-hit towns, near the quake's epicenter.

Before he boarded a plan for Chengdu on Tuesday night, the ethnic Qiang student received a special stipend of 5,000 yuan from his school and 10,000 yuan more donated by teachers and classmates.

He had heard his grandparents had made it to safety, his father was away on a business on Monday, and that his cousin had clawed his way out of the debris.

But his mother and little sister were nowhere to be found.

"My sister's school had no survivors, and my mom is probably no longer alive," he said, choking away tears.

Ge said he and his mom were "like buddies".

"I call her Second Sister, because she is the second child of her family," he said.

"I have to go find her, dead or alive - I'd give my life to get her back alive."

Ge Jun was on the phone with a teacher at Beichuan High School, his alma mater, when the quake hit.

"I was telling him I'd bought the book he requested and he said he'd take me out for dinner to thank me. Then the school was leveled, so I don't know whether he's still alive."

Zhao Qingyong and Yang Dan were lucky their quest to find their lost 10-month-old son ended happily.

While the Dujiangyan couple was out having lunch with a relative on Monday, they left the child with his grandmother.

Chatting at a streetside store when the earth suddenly trembled, the grandmother tried to run to the middle of the street, but tripped.

As she was buried by falling rubble, the baby flew from her clutches. Thankfully, although he was badly bruised, he was rescued and taken away in an ambulance.

The couple then embarked on a fruitless and nerve-racking 44-hour search, scanning every hospital in nearby towns.

Finally, they were alerted to photographs of lost ones that had been posted online.

One featured a baby boy in a floral shirt and a yellow vest, which was exactly what they dressed their son in on Monday.

They found out later that the hospital their son was at was one they had called into the previous day, before the baby arrived there.

Believing the child had been orphaned, nurses named him "Duyi", meaning an orphan from Dujiangyan.

This will forever be his nickname, his parents said.