MIANYANG, SICHUAN PROVINCE: It has been more than a week since the deadly earthquake struck China's Sichuan province.

Destroyed houses, families buried beneath the landslides, damaged schools and other scenes of devastation are a constant reminder of the destruction that wreaked the towns in Mianyang.

While reconstruction has begun in many affected places, the shortage of relief materials and machinery also means that towns like Ping Tong will have to wait a while more.

Wang Shao Lu, party secretary of Ping Tong Township, said: "We still need big tents. We still don't have enough tents. Right now, about 10 people are staying in one tent. We need about 1,500 tents."

The severely injured have been sent to neighbouring hospitals, including those in Chengdu and even Chongqing city.

Villagers who suffered relatively minor wounds stay in Ping Tong. But health workers are keeping a very close eye on their condition, especially when thousands are cramped into the quarters.

Jing Dong Lei, director of Chengdu Medical University, said: "We are disinfecting the place. Right now we are using traditional Chinese medicine to boost the villagers' immune system."

Severely damaged roads have hampered the distribution of relief supplies to some villages.

"For civilians and NGOs like ourselves, there's simply no way to bring our relief supplies directly to the villages, so the only way is to bring part of our supplies to distribution centres like this," said Mercy Relief's director for international programme, Chia Hui Yong, referring to the disaster management centres in Mianyang.

Relief supplies like food, water and tents are dropped at disaster management centres. Military trucks will then ferry the items to affected villages that are not easily accessible.

Soldiers have already been in Mianyang for over a week and they are expected to stay for another three months. Their work may be done in three months, but reconstruction will take another three years, before the five million homeless are properly housed. - CNA/ir