A kid transports food at tent area of the quake-hit Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu, northwest China's Qinghai Province, April 20, 2010.(Xinhua/Li Ziheng)
YUSHU, Qinghai, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Visions of shaking earth and school buildings haunt in the dreams of Bayang, an 18-year-old high school student. Fu Wencai, headmaster of an elementary school jumps on his feet every time someone bangs the door close, fearing another earthquake has come.
These are some of the survivors of the earthquake that struck Yushu prefecture of northwestern China's Qinghai Province on April 14.
Eleven days after the 7.1-magnitude quake reduced most of Yushu to mere rubble, thousands are still struggling to fight anxiety and stress.
"It is likely for people to suffer from irritability, anxiety, fear, despair, guilt, numbness and confusion after hit by an earthquake of such a large scale," said Guo Yanqing, a psychological expert with the Beijing-based Peking University Sixth Hospital.
Guo is one of three experts sent by the Ministry of Health to Qinghai' s provincial capital Xining on April 18, to provide trainings on psychological counseling for medical workers to be dispatched to Yushu.
Shen Zhenming, vice director of the Tangshan No. 5 Hospital who arrived in Yushu on April 20, said generally speaking about 30 to 40 percent of quake victims needed psychological counseling.
He said he had already provided psychological counseling for more than 50 people at local hospitals.
"Loss of homes, families and properties, in addition to worries of ensuing aftershocks are keeping people in fear and causing insomnia," said Shen, who is himself a survivor from the earthquake that struck Tangshan in 1976.
