Video: China's children wait to go home

The dead now exceed 60,000, tens of thousands lie injured in hospital and an unknown number of victims remain entombed in the ruins of buildings.

But it is the stunning estimate of 5m people without homes after the Sichuan earthquake – and the mountain landslides that followed it – that faces the Chinese government with its next challenge.

Wang Bing Sheng is 86 years old and the only member of his family to survive the quake. He sits on a stool eating noodles outside an army tent in a Mianyang stadium, where 20,000 of the quake’s survivors are waiting to be told what to do next.

“I wasn’t badly injured in the disaster,” he said. “Yes, I’m the only one in my family to have made it. I’m staying with neighbours in their tent. I don’t know what I’ll do next.”

Nervous about uncontrolled public gatherings at any time, Chinese officials are hastening to organise the dispossessed and avert trouble. Unruly crowds have already staged at least one noisy show of anger over aid.

Official camps for the displaced have been set up in key cities in the disaster zone. In Mianyang, three sports stadiums hold as many as 20,000 people each. Another half a million people are sleeping on the city streets under plastic sheets, tarpaulins and billboards.

Donations to the Red Cross for earthquake victims have already reached nearly £100m and although rescue squads have barely finished combing the rubble, the rehabilitation of the survivors is well under way.

Camp conditions are basic but orderly. Families grouped with friends and neighbours have received army issue tents, padded out with donated blankets and mattresses. Canteens, medical centres and play areas have been set up in a central hub and as loudspeakers blast out announcements, people form orderly queues for free food. An squad of 130 sanitation workers disinfect the entire area with spray packs mounted on their backs on a 24-hour rota. It feels like something between an ordered refugee camp and the last day of a rock festival.

“We’ve got access to medicine and doctors and there’s more than enough food to go round,” said 24-year-old Christine Liu in perfect English. Nine members of her family are missing, including her father.

Doctors in white coats sweep efficiently from tent to tent, checking wounds and administering medicine. Volunteer students from all over China hand out leaflets offering counselling on how to cope with the stress of the disaster.

In the town centre of Mianzhu, nearly all buildings are still standing but more than 90% of them have been deemed unsafe. The people crowd into temporary tents and shelters in the parks and squares, or on roadsides.

Neighbours have grouped together and pooled what possessions they have left. Plastic sheets propped up with sticks are made to look as homely as possible with retrieved sofas, bicycles, umbrellas and coffee tables.

Shop owners have opened for business, spreading the salvaged contents of their old stores on planks of wood propped up with bits of brick. New and old clothes are on sale, hanging from nylon washing lines strung across the street.

In Luo Peng Fei’s family, four generations are living under one sheet of striped tarpaulin. “The government has promised to give us temporary homes in one month and they say they will rebuild the whole town within three years,” he said, bouncing his 18-month-old son on his knee. “We’ve got no reason to believe they won’t keep their promise but one thing thing’s for sure, we’ll keep a close eye on the quality of construction this time.”

Anyone with a job in the service industry has been ordered back to work but schools have started summer holidays early. Thirteen-year-old Li Shi Qi has had to abandon all the books and toys in her home, even though it is still standing. “I’ve got nothing to do all day,” she said. “My friends from school are staying in tents around the town too but Mum and Dad won’t let me go and play with them in case I get hit by things falling off buildings.”

Boredom is something child psychologists say could be an increasing problem. “It’s crucial these kids find something to distract them,” said Kate Redman, who has flown into the disaster area for Save the Children. “If they have too much time to think about the trauma they have been through, their recovery will be a much slower process.”

For the Chinese government, two main worries remain. Meteorologists are predicting heavy rain and water levels in the 34 lakes created by the quake could pose a sudden danger.

Scientists are also concerned about 50 chemical factories, 35 of which produce toxic waste, that were damaged or put out of action, said Wu Xiaoqing, the vice-minister of environmental protection. Wu said 35 radiation sources had been secured, leaving 15 still buried. Officials have indicated that these are small radioactive cores in hospitals or laboratories, not nuclear weapons plants.

Yesterday Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, flew in to inspect the epi-centre and praised the Chinese government for what he called “extraordinary leadership”. He was welcomed by the premier, Wen Jiabao, who said the death toll could surpass 80,000.