More than a year after the 12 May 2008 earthquake which struck the north of China's Sichuan province, killing at least 70,000 people and displacing more than 4.8 million, the landscape is peppered with temporary camps, filled with survivors unable to return home. These distinct grey-and-blue and grey-and-red buildings are rudimentary rows of rooms made of steel and foam, known as banfang (board-houses).

Nearly 30,000 earthquake survivors live at Sichuan's largest camp, near Wudu Town, about five kilometres north of Mianzhu City. Housing survivors from three nearby towns, the camp resembles a vast shanty town, albeit with government-provided electricity and water.

For the laobaixing (common people) of the villages of Qingping Mountain, most of whose homes were destroyed in the earthquake, the Wudu camp provides a temporary home. Of those families who can afford to buy a new house at Qingping and are not afraid of the risks, many are moving back.

For the others, however, they continue in a kind of limbo. They are villagers in a temporary village, unable to work the land and unsure of their futures.