China pauses to mourn quake victims

|PIC1|From tent cities in Sichuan province to Beijing's Tiananmen Square, sirens wailed and millions of Chinese stood for three minutes on Monday to mourn the tens of thousands who died in last week's earthquake.

The moment of grief was observed across the vast country of 1.3 billion people at 2:28 p.m., exactly a week after the 7.9 magnitude quake that ravaged the southwestern province of Sichuan.

"I think the three minutes was important because it means that everyone, from the central government down to every individual, is thinking of us. Because this is worse than a war," said He Ling, a policeman in Pingtong town, which was almost totally wrecked by the earthquake.

Even as the rescuers stopped work, another aftershock rattled the area and set off a small landslide from a nearby cliff.

The army and the medics lined up with bowed heads and a huge Chinese flag was waved from a large pile of rubble.

The death toll from the quake was raised to more than 34,000 on Monday, but the figure could rise dramatically as the Communist Party chief in Sichuan said nearly 30,000 were missing. A further 5,000 are believed still buried under the rubble.

The government put direct economic losses in Sichuan alone at about 67 billion yuan (4.9 billion pounds).

Air raid sirens, as well as car, train and ship horns wailed around the country to mark the one-week anniversary. Flags flew at half mast and cinemas were ordered to stop showing films for the mourning period.

In Beichuan, another town devastated by the quake, several hundred rescuers bowed their heads and laid wreaths made from twigs and scrap paper pulled from the debris.

"We're all feeling very heavy hearted. So many people weren't saved," a soldier said, standing by the remains of a wrecked school.

In Beijing, the country's top leaders, led by President Hu Jintao, wore white flowers on their chests and bowed in silence.

Nearby, in Tiananmen Square -- where student-led pro-democracy protests were crushed by the army in 1989 -- the sombre mood quickly turned into a vocal show of patriotism. About 1,000 flag-waving people marched in the vast square, chanting "Go China Go" and "Rebuild Sichuan", and singing the national anthem.

SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS

A senior government official said rescuers had reached the remotest areas of the province by Monday. Premier Wen Jiabao ordered troops to enter the last villages within 24 hours.

Despite the treacherous conditions, the search for survivors went on as families refused to give up hope for their loved ones.

Hundreds of aftershocks and bad weather have hampered the rescue operation, and on Monday the transport ministry reported that more than 200 relief workers had been buried by mudflows in recent days.

Details of the accidents were not immediately available. It was unclear whether any of those buried had been pulled out alive.

There have been numerous rockslides from unstable mountain slopes, and blocked rivers swollen by heavy rain have threatened to burst their banks.

Authorities believe more than 5,000 are still buried under the rubble in Sichuan. Most are feared dead, but some are still being pulled out alive.

There was a burst of elation in ruined Beichuan, when one woman was found alive.

Wang Hongguo, head of the rescue team, said she had found her under a mass of concrete. "We had to pull her out very gradually. She looked quite sturdy, so she might pull through," Wang said.

Rescuers also found a 50-year-old woman alive in the wreckage of a residential building at a coal mine.

But rescuers mostly had the gruesome job of recovering decomposing bodies. Dozens of bodies were pulled from the rubble in Beichuan on Monday, and rescuers scattered lime and splashed disinfectant to prevent disease.

Farmer Wang Hongchen and his wife Chen Guangfen scrambled over hundreds of metres of rubble to look for their son, who worked as a mobile phone repair man in the town.

"I think there's still hope. He worked on the first floor, so if he was lucky there would have been space for him to survive," Wang said, in between shouting out his son's name over the ruins.

"There's nothing I want more than to find him alive," added Chen. "Other people who know their relatives have died can call this a memorial day, or a funeral, but not me yet."

Some 245,000 people were injured in the disaster, the worst to hit China since 1976, but rescuers had yet to reach all the stricken villages, Xinhua reported.

On Monday, the Foreign Ministry appealed to the international community to provide more tents for about 4.8 million people who lost their homes in the quake.

So far, 10.8 billion yuan ($1.55 billion) has been received from donors at home and abroad, China said. Rescue teams from Russia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and Singapore are also searching for survivors.

($1=6.990 Yuan)