Persistence brings hope and chance of miracles

Zhang Guangrui, a 40-year-old volunteer with the Blue Sky Rescue Team from northern China, put on his sunglasses to hide his tears on the streets of Mandalay in Myanmar on Thursday afternoon.

An 84-year-old woman, whom Zhang's team had spent days trying to rescue, was confirmed dead earlier in the day, before she could be saved from a collapsed building.

I tried to talk with the woman's daughter on Wednesday. She cried, saying, "I have no energy to speak, and I just want to see my mother as soon as possible." I put away my recorder and hugged her.