With the quake's epicenter just a stone's throw away from her village in the mountains, He Xiaoyan is arguably one of the most visually descriptive tour guides in the world.

Every day, dressed in traditional Yi ethnic clothing, the 31-year-old takes visitors to the symbolic school in Yingxiu that was reduced to rubble by the temblor and is now a commemorative park.

She recalls to them the moment the town was thrown into chaos, as mountains split and swayed, and buildings were flattened; about how one-third of residents were killed or injured; and she describes being isolated in the deep mountains for hours, as people tried, bare-handedly, to dig relatives and neighbors from the debris.