The day before the earthquake

Chinese web users have been moved by these images. They were taken by a school teacher called Tang in Beichuan in a town near the epicentre, one day before the earthquake. The day after, the school collapsed, and two-thirds of the town's residents were killed.

In the midst of thousands of photos of dead bodies and destruction that have flooded the Internet in the past few days, these are possibly the hardest to bear. They have already been viewed by 120,000 people and provoked over 1600 comments.

The teacher who posted the photos on her blog left a message a few days after the earthquake to reassure web users that she and her pupils were safe and well. We don't know how many of the school's other students were killed in the earthquake.

Posted on http://space.scol.com.cn/tgp1963/.