Quake left wedding party in layer of dust

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Photographer Wang Qiang had just shot the bride- and groom-to-be in one pose and was waiting for the makeup artist to help them change clothes when the ground started shaking.

The first sounds he heard were of stones falling from the 100-year-old church nearby.

"I shouted to people, 'Run! Run!"' Wang said Thursday night by phone. "The ground shook and we couldn't see anything in the dust."

Wang's and other photographers' wedding shoots for five couples on the afternoon of May 12 in Bailu town turned into an eerie record of China's deadliest natural disaster in a generation. The photos show the young women in wedding dresses, dusty and shaken, with the ruins of China's deadly earthquake around her. Wang refused to give the couples' names, citing privacy.

The decrepit Church of the Annunciation, built under the direction of French priests 100 years ago outside the city of Pengzhou, has been a popular spot for wedding photos in recent years, even though it was damaged long ago by landslides. The earthquake left it in tatters.

"The building collapsed within about 10 seconds," said Wang, who lives in Chengdu, the capital of hard-hit Sichuan province.

Wang's photo shows a half-cracked, half-shattered facade with its ruins spilling from the front door. Clouds of dust from the magnitude-7.9 earthquake still floated in the air.

When the dust had settled, everyone stood up and realized they were all safe, Wang said. His photos show them standing in disbelief, covering their mouths, wiping dust from their hair. A bride-to-be from another photo shoot pulls up her dress, revealing sneakers.

They tried to return down the mountain to town, but villagers told them the way was blocked. They spent the night in a tent and made it down the next day. A helpful truck driver took them part of the way. Wang shot members of the wedding group climbing into the back, while one groom-to-be, still in his white tux, holds a delicate-looking parasol over some of the women.

"We could still hear landslides," Wang wrote later in his online diary.

Wang quickly turned from wedding photographer to journalist. He shot residents huddling under a tarp, relief workers climbing over broken buildings, a hillside that was raw from sliding stones.

"I shot these photos out of the instinct of a photographer," he said.

Wang has put the photos on his blog, calling it "Survivors of the Storm." One photo in the middle stands out from the rest. It's of the couple just before the earthquake, their arms around each other, smiling and clean.

"What is happiness, happiness is safe and sound," the caption says. "Having gone through a life-and-death test, they surely will clasp hands and grow old together."

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