Society

Two things still haunt Wang Bin a year after an earthquake decimated his village: the death of his teenage son and a purchase he made more than a decade earlier.

He bought the cartful of bricks and two tons of cement in 1995 from a contractor who said they were extra material from a school construction project. The price was low, and Wang's neighbors had already taken advantage of the deal.

It was only after the magnitude-7.9 earthquake devastated Sichuan province last May 12 — razing towns, collapsing classrooms and taking almost 70,000 lives — that it hit the hollow-eyed, 45-year-old laborer.

"That material was actually meant for the school," Wang, a former construction worker, said recently at his temporary home near the ruins of Beichuan Middle School.

Police wearing face masks cordoned off the Metropark Hotel and a group of blue-gowned and masked health workers was seen entering the hotel in the bustling bar and nightclub district on Hong Kong island.

The first confirmed case of swine flu in Asia was recorded in Hong Kong Friday after a Mexican man who arrived via Shanghai tested positive, Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced.

More than 300 guests and staff at the hotel where the patient had briefly stayed were placed under quarantine for seven days as officials announced "draconian" measures in a bid to contain the A(H1N1) flu virus.

"We have our first confirmed swine flu case in Hong Kong. He is Mexican," Tsang told reporters.

The 25-year-old Mexican arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday from Mexico via Shanghai on China Eastern Airlines flight MU 505, Tsang said.

He was admitted to hospital on Thursday night suffering from a fever and tested positive on Friday for the flu virus. He was in a stable condition, Tsang said.

The Metropark Hotel in Wanchai district where he had been staying had been isolated, he said.

"I will raise the alert level from serious to emergency," the chief executive said.

Despite putting Hong Kong on its highest level of alert, Tsang said all social activities and exhibitions would go ahead as normal and schools would remain open in the city, which is still scarred by memories of the SARS epidemic in 2003 in which close to 300 died.

"I stress we don't need to panic," he said.

Health Secretary York Chow said guests and staff at the hotel would be quarantined for seven days.

"We have also exercised the authority... so that we will first isolate the hotel and also... ensure the relevant people are quarantined for seven days," Chow told reporters.

"Since this is the first case in Hong Kong we must be very careful as the chance of controlling and containing this infection is limited, we will try to be more draconian in our policy," he said.

However, he dismissed the idea of an entry bar for people flying from Mexico.

He said around 200 guests and 100 staff would be affected by the quarantine order at the hotel, issued under the control and prevention of disease ordinance.

"We will also prescribe Tamiflu for them, which is proven to be an effective prophylactic for this disease."

In a statement early Saturday, the government added that 12 guests who refused to remain at the hotel had been moved to the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village, a newly "designated isolation camp" in a country park for a seven-day quarantine.

Meanwhile authorities have placed the Mexican man's two travelling companions and his Hong Kong friend in quarantine at Princess Margaret Hospital.

They were also trying to find the two taxi drivers who were in contact with the man and the 142 passengers on the flight from Shanghai.

"We are also tracing the passengers who were on the same flight as this patient, particularly the three rows in front and three rows behind," Chow said.

"We're prepared to have them sent to hospital for inspection and also for quarantine," he said.

He appealed for other passengers and cabin crew to come forward for health checks.

"With this I hope that we can minimise the spread of this possible virus to our community," the health secretary said.

China's official Xinhua news agency reported early Saturday that the Ministry of Health was taking "prevention and control measures" following the confirmation of the spread of the virus to Hong Kong.

"The ministry said it is exerting efforts to track the passengers aboard the flights to ensure that they are quarantined," the report said, adding that it had passed flight information onto Hong Kong authorities.

Yuen Kwok-yung, who heads the team of researchers studying the flu at the University of Hong Kong, said there is currently no gold standard for the disease as each country is trying to develop its own tests.

Hong Kong, at the forefront of the SARS epidemic in 2003 and already on alert for bird flu, had previously announced a series of tough measures to combat any threat from swine flu.

The southern Chinese city has stepped up its protection measures, including the use of temperature screening machines at airports and other entry points.

Authorities have said they would detain anyone showing symptoms of the virus after arriving from an infected area.

Health officials have advised against all non-essential travel to worst-hit Mexico.

Firefighters are battling to contain wind-whipped fire that has been raging for nearly five days near a virgin forest in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang.

The fire started in Yinanhe Forest Farm on Monday afternoon and quickly spread northeast to Yichun City. It has killed one firefighter and injured four others.

The fire had affected more than 20,000 local residents and ravaged 20,000 hectares of wooded area by Thursday, according to the firefighting headquarters.

People living up to 35 km from the fire front were being evacuated, although the exact number being forced to move was not immediately known.

Fire crews worked overnight Thursday hoping to bring the fire in Yichun under control. But their efforts were hindered by wind gusts of up to 40 km per hour.

Local authorities said they expected Friday's drizzle and artificial rain would help extinguish the flames.

"We need to take advantage of the rain, put out the fire tonight and clean up the fire site to prevent invisible sparks from escalating into big flames again tomorrow," said Governor Li Zhanshu, who visited Yichun city Friday.

Yichun is home to more than 30 percent of the world's total Korean pine virgin forests and also a renowned granite stone-forest national park. Its forests are susceptible to fires every spring and autumn.

In another forest fire that burned through an oasis in the deserts of Aksu Prefecture of the northwestern Xinjiang Ugyur Autonomous Region Thursday night, more than 20 centuries-old trees were scorched.

Border police officers in Aksu said the fire started on grass at 11 p.m. and soon spread to the woods, with winds sweeping at 38 km per hour. The flames were put out at 4 a.m. Friday and no casualties were reported.

Four-year-old Ma Ke is too young to understand what happened to his mother and father, despite the fact that the memory of their deaths often reduces his grandfather to tears.

Ma Ke's parents, Ma Qiang and Liu Chunli, were killed in last year's devastating earthquake on May 12.

Ma Qiang, the father, had run an iron plant in Yinxing village, Wenchuan County, the quake epicenter, and the family had been well off.

Ma Ke and his 12-year-old brother Ma Ziheng were left with their grandparents, who are in their 60s with very little income. The couple not only lost their only son, but almost all their property in the earthquake.

Farmers their age in China usually rely on their offspring for a living as the country's social security network has yet to cover its huge rural population of about 900 million.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs worked out a plan in June 2008 to provide all possible support for the orphans, and promised to guarantee their schooling, housing, and employment.

Chen Kefu, vice director of the civil affairs bureau of Sichuan Province, told the public earlier this week that apart from 12 orphans who had been adopted, 638 children who lost their parents in the quake were staying in orphanages and the rest with relatives.

"They are in a fairly good situation," said Chen.

Ma Ke and his brother have struggled to begin a new life in strange environments. The little boy was taken to his aunt's temporary home in Dujiangyan, about 40 minutes drive from the provincial capital of Chengdu.

He often asks his grandmother whether his father and mother know he has moved to this new place.

He is attending a kindergarten in Dujiangyan.

"He is always ready to help, such as arranging desks and chairs," says Yang Jing, Ma Ke's teacher.

But he refused to touch the crayons when the class were asked to draw pictures of their mothers on Women's Day.

Ma Ke will quietly stay in a corner, watching other parents picking up their children.

"It just hurts me so much," says Yang, "My colleagues and I try very cautiously to treat Ma Ke the same as we do other kids. He is sensitive. Special care would make him feel less comfortable."

Compared to his brother, Ma Ke is lucky staying with his grandparents. Ma Ziheng was sent to a welfare organization in the coastal city of Rizhao, in east China's Shandong Province, with 337 other teenage orphans September and enrolled at a middle school there.

"Ziheng never shows his grief in front of us," says Ma Yuanda, the grandfather. "He also cries when he misses his father and mother, but he always tries not to let us know. He has been very much concerned about his younger brother and us, never spending a penny on unnecessary things."

The grandfather gave Ziheng 100 yuan (US$15) as pin money last September before he left for Shandong. "But he hasn't finished it even today."

The grandparents have been worried about Ziheng being so far from home. They felt helpless when the welfare organization staff said Ziheng had performed poorly in school due to possible mental stress.

"What can we do for the boy as we are so far apart?" asks Ma Yuanda.

The local government has noticed the problems faced by the grandparents and their grandchildren.

"It is true that the carers feel it is difficult to support the orphans on their own," says Xiong Xiaohong, an official in charge of orphan affairs with Wenchuan County. "The county government has been helping them find work as well as paying a monthly allowance of 600 yuan (US$90) for each orphan plus donations."

Ma Ke and his grandparents need at least 1,000 yuan (US$150) each month to cover basic living costs. The grandparents can hardly make ends meet on the 600-yuan allowance.

Thanks to the efforts of the local civil affairs department, Dong Suyun, the grandmother, has work as a day carer at a kindergarten, which enables her to bring home 500 yuan (US$75) every month.

And it means a long expected family reunion as Ziheng will return to Sichuan for schooling in September.

"I'm overwhelmed at the prospect of taking care of my grandsons and helping them live postive lives," says Dong. "We are getting older by the day. I do hope in the future people still remember my kids and give them a hand."