China quake spells end for remote mountain hamlets

By Lindsay Beck

SHANGSHUYUAN, China (Reuters) - Lao Xiao knows no other home, but these might be her last days in Shangshuyuan, a tiny mountain village in the heart of the earthquake-shattered region of southwest China.

She gestures at the surrounding hillsides that were ravaged by landslides the day the quake struck and gives a sigh.

"It's dangerous here now. Look at that -- there could be more landslides," she said, pointing to the swathes of brown cutting through the otherwise green mountain faces.

"We'll go down and live in the temporary housing. We'll probably end up staying down there," said the 60-year-old, referring to the narrow valley below.

Her village of Shangshuyuan is just one of several tiny mountain communities that will likely be left behind in the wake of the quake that struck on May 12, killing at least 69,000.

Sometimes just a few kilometers from flatter land below, their access over rough, rutted tracks and their setting tucked inside the hills sets the communities apart. The air is cooler, the houses traditional wood, the livelihood farming.

Already many of these villages were losing people as the young went to study or work in nearby towns or cities, leaving only the old behind.

Now, between damaged houses and the threat of more landslides, many of those remaining will also leave for good.

In the village of Da'an, it is a similar scene.

Reached by track that winds up through stands of bamboo and is now strewn with boulders that came tumbling down the mountains in the quake, it is home to only a handful of people tending their pigs.

The rest have already moved to lower ground, to better access aid and to have a safe tent roof over their heads.

Feng Deyou is one of the holdouts, but, squatting on a pile of roof tiles in the detritus of what was once his home, he says he too will soon go.

"Of course we're sad, but what can we do," he said.

His son, Feng Weiping, left in 1992.

He said most of the young in the village had already gone.