China quake survivors keep vigil over town of death

By Chris Buckley

YINGXIU, China (Reuters) - Among the ruins of Yingxiu at the epicenter of China's calamitous earthquake, survivors remain, defying the pall of death to keep vigil over lost loved ones or even now looking to rebuild homes amid the devastation.

In this valley town in the southwestern province of Sichuan searchers keep digging out hundreds of bodies, hauling them to mass graves lit at night by arc lights.

But among the stench and debris and the landslides gashing nearby hills after the May 12 quake, hundreds of people insist on staying or returning, often hoping to see loved ones before they disappear into the three-meter-deep trenches on a slope above the town.

Near what was a government office, one woman sat on a chair beside a mass of toppled concrete as if waiting for an appointment. She was "keeping company" with her husband, hoping to be there if the searchers in blue or orange body-suits find him under the rubble.

"You can't take away the body yourself or give it a separate burial," said the woman surnamed Cui, a 38-year-old office worker who traveled from Chengdu, Sicuan province's capital.

"I just want to keep him company and stop him from feeling lonely, so I talk to him and wait ... It's also a comfort for me."

Other people said they would stay to remake their homes and revive this small hub of tourism and business, now mostly leveled, with other buildings cracked and tottering.

"Living off the generosity of friends and relatives and the government is not a long-term proposition, said Zhao Daixing, a 58-year-old farmer whose wife, son and brother died in the quake.

"I'm absolutely staying here so I can help rebuild our home," he said with a cheery decisiveness that belied his losses.

Officials on the site said the government has also vowed to at least partly rebuild Yingxiu, where an estimated 8,600 of 13,000 residents died in the afternoon quake that survivors said turned the sky dark with dust.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Yingxiu on Saturday, accompanied by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, to show support for the relief work, Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 80,000 people are dead or missing from China's worst earthquake in three decades, the government has said.

But as China weighs rebuilding or moving its shattered towns, survivors also face wrenching choices between mourning and renewal, between staying in familiar but haunted hometowns or leaving for safer but unfamiliar ones.

"Staying here will be hard," said Wang Fuoxiu, 51, waiting for word of a missing five-year-old grandson. "Leaving will also be hard ... For now, I just try to get through the day."

WAITING FOR THE SEARCHERS