Sichuan migrant workers anxious about quake-hit homes

By Ian Ransom

BEIJING (Reuters) - Unlike many in Beijing, Ye Shao did not feel a thing when China's most ruinous earthquake in decades struck in her home province of Sichuan on Monday, sending shockwaves that panicked residents from Shanghai to Bangkok.

"I was delivering vegetables at the time, but I thought it strange that all these people were running out of buildings on to the street," Ye said.

Four agonising hours later, Ye thanked heaven her parents, who live about 100 km from the epicentre at Sichuan's Wenchuan county, were outdoors when the quake hit.

"They are now living in tents in an open field. Our family home is ruined. Of course, I'm worried for them, because I've heard there may be more aftershocks," said Ye.

As state media reported on Thursday that the death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake could rise to more than 50,000, Sichuan migrant workers in Beijing talked gloomily of broken homes, dead neighbours and fears for relatives living in desperation.

Forming a large part of China's 150 million surplus rural workers, whose cheap labour has fuelled blistering economic growth, millions of Sichuanese have migrated more than 1,000 miles to work in booming cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Many have left spouses and children in poor villages at home in a bid to better their prospects.

Now, as images of flattened villages appear on television screens around the clock, many are determined to go back.