This photograph shows how an earthquake catches people by surprise - there was only time for this last instinctive act. This image won Readers Choice in The Week in Pictures the week of Aug. 28 Sept. 4, 2008.

Zou Bo/EPA
A picture made available on Sept. 1, 2008, showing rescuers finding the bodies of a mother covering up her child buried in a collapsed house after an earthquake hit Lixi town in Huili county in southwest China's Sichuan province on 31 August 2008. The quake has killed at least 38 people and forced 152,000 to flee, Chinese news agency Xinhua said.