(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-04 13:25

BEIJING -- On Children's Day, which fell on June 1, Chen Guangbiao visited a kindergarten in Mianzhu, one of the cities hit hardest by the Sichuan earthquake, asking the children what they wanted for their festival presents.

"I want a schoolbag and a pencil box," said one. Another asked for "a pretty dress."

And many said: "I need a house." For many, along with their surviving relatives, had been left homeless by the disaster,

"You will have them," said the man, smiling in his fatigues, with a red cross badge around his arm. "I will build classrooms and houses that no earthquake will break down."

Chen Guangbiao, head of a mid-sized private company in Jiangsu province, holds a baby in his arms in quake-hit Sichuan. [File photo]

Chen is the head of a mid-sized private company in east China's Jiangsu Province. When a friend called from Sichuan Province immediately after the quake, Chen was in the middle of a board meeting in Wuhan, central China.

Half an hour later, he was heading towards the area with 60 bulldozers and other engineering equipment and more than 100 staff.

"We had taken part several times in dismantling work and ruin rescue, and our men knew where survivors could be found in a collapsed house," Chen said.

He arrived in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, the next day, and his private rescue team reached the hardest-hit areas almost as fast as the military forces did.

In the following days, Chen pulled 11 people out of the rubble. His team saved nearly 100.

The machines they brought dug out 100,000 cubic meters of debris. He donated 7.9 million yuan (about 1.13 million U.S. dollars), along with 23,000 radios and 2,300 tents. He also undertook to rebuild a middle school in Beichuan County, which was expected to cost more than 20 million yuan.

His grieving face as he viewed piles of debris appeared in newspapers throughout the country, and many readers said they shed tears thinking of what Chen did, saw and said.

Premier Wen Jiabao praised him as a representative of the conscientious private entrepreneurs who cared for the people in the disaster. Ordinary people, who knew of his deeds through the Internet and the media, called him "Elder Brother Biao" in heartfelt respect.

Chen learned to do business at an early age as he struggled to make a living in a poor family. In 1970, when he was two years old, his brother and sister died of hunger, and he scarcely tasted meat before age ten.

He borrowed from neighbors to get his primary education, but managed to support himself to finish his higher education. He soon started doing business and founded his current company, Jiangsu Huangpu Investment (Group) Co., in 2000.

In 2003, he donated 2 million yuan and 800 examination machines in an effort to fight against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). In 2008, he was called the No.1 philanthropist in China for donating more than 181 million yuan in 2007.

Chen carried more than 2 million yuan with him and gave out cash to quake survivors along his route from Chengdu to Beichuan County. He was able to get to the destination on May 14, just two days after the quake, and prepare for his team's arrival.

Chen Guangbiao, head of a mid-sized private company in Jiangsu province, speaks to employees who volunteered to help with relief work in quake-hit Sichuan. [File photo]

"Standing on the rubble, I could hear cries for help here and there," Chen said. "A thrill went down my spine." He shouted back and told the trapped people to save their stamina and wait for rescue.

Then he went back to the equipment team and worked overnight to open the landslide-blocked mountain road to the hardest-hit town.

At one dangerous point, the road collapsed only 2 m away from him when he was standing outside in the rainy field directing the machines.

Chen and his engineering equipment team finally reached Beichuan County at 6 p.m. on May 15 and soon started rescuing students buried in the ruins of Beichuan Middle School.

When he heard a feeble cry underneath a cement slab, Chen called for his crane. He ordered the team to drill a hole in the slab to attach it firmly before lifting, to avoid any accident that could hurt the child beneath.

Chen carried more than 200 bodies from the ruins of the school, and his coat was soaked with blood.

"Are you not afraid?" someone asked. "Why? They are our children!" Chen replied. He picked up textbooks from the debris, blew off the dust, and used them to cover the faces of the dead children.

Chen did not sleep till May 15, and he consumed nothing except a few bottles of water. He and his team went to schools and hotels before the end of May, when reconstruction and epidemic prevention work kicked off.

Having just returned to Chengdu after spending the festival with the children in quake-hit areas, he started planning to donate 1,000 television sets and 10,000 radios while he was aboard the plane.

Chen called on his fellow entrepreneurs to lend a hand to the disaster relief and reconstruction work.

"Wealth is like water. You can keep it to yourself when you have only one cup, but you should share it with others when you have a whole river," he said.