CHINA:The tragedy of such a natural disaster tends to mask the underlying devastation experienced by those spared death, Clifford Coonanreports from Dujiangyan, Sichuan province
EVERY TIME the body of one of the hundreds of schoolchildren buried in the ruins of the Ju Yuan Middle School is dragged out and identified, a barrage of firecrackers explodes and a heartbreaking chorus of keening and wailing is heard from the assembled families.
Firecrackers are lit at Chinese funerals to ward off evil spirits, and here in Dujiangyan they are to send the soul of the child home, but bad ghosts have already paid a devastating visit to this shattered community.
The bucketing rain has turned the area around the ruins of the school into grey mud. It's a gothic scene of horror, unrelenting; all the worse for the knowledge that this has happened at many schools around the region affected by the quake, including some not yet reached by rescuers because of bad weather.
The basketball court in what used to be the playground has been turned into a field mortuary. Exhausted soldiers who have been working flat out to find the bodies squat down to rest, their waterproof ponchos bunching in the mud.
Everyone is talking about what happened to the "xiao pengyoumen", which translates as "little friends" and there is a strong sense of bewilderment as people try to come to terms with the earthquake, which struck at around 2.30pm in the afternoon when the children were in class. Sides of the school buildings slid away as the ground shook, becoming concrete tombs for the 900 children in the school. Support walls left standing have blackboards on them, with the day's lessons written on them.
"The building collapsed so suddenly, the little friends didn't stand a chance. They didn't have a chance at all," said one local, surnamed Li, who was still shaking his head in astonishment at the apparent cruelty of nature nearly a day after the earthquake grabbed this town by the throat and squeezed.
One man carries his crying wife away from the scene on his back, his face a mask of anger and grief. The school is near Dujiangyan city, not far from the epicentre of the quake.
Although more than 10,000 are presumed dead - the current official estimate for fatalities in the earthquake which shook Sichuan - the tragedy tends to veil the underlying devastation felt by survivors.
But a couple of minutes in the grounds of the school, watching tight-lipped People's Liberation Army soldiers retrieve another batch of bodies up from beneath the twisted metal and concrete blocks, quickly personalises the whole experience of an earthquake.
Another round of firecrackers, and a fresh chorus of wailing begins.
One of the barrages of firecrackers confirms the death of Li Chunyan (16). Her mother tells of how she struggled desperately to save the life of her only child.
"When the earthquake happened, within two minutes we all rushed down here to dig. I wanted to dig her out with my own two hands. All the families did. Li Chunyan's grandfather, aunts, uncles, we all dug until our fingers were sore. We are quicker than the machines. The machines didn't do it right," she says.
Li Chunyan's grandfather sat in a tent near the site of the disaster. "I'm going to wait for her here. I'm not going to accept that she's not coming back."
Ju Yuan County Middle School had some 1,500 students, aged between 12 and 16 years, although some of the little bundled bodies in the field mortuary looked a lot younger.
Behind the grimy flaps of the tent, where perhaps 20 bodies are laid out, one mother is shaking the mud-streaked lifeless body of her son, trying in vain awaken him. He is wearing an adidas sweatshirt, a baggy pair of jeans and looks to be around 13 years old. Another boy in the tent is still unclaimed.
The death of a child is almost unendurable, but there is further horror for many of the parents in Dujiangyuan. The one child policy means many of the dead students were only children, and the fact they were teenagers means that for many families there will be no more children.
One soldier, who gave just his surname, Zhang, had been working since an hour or two after the earthquake. The response from the authorities was quick - China is efficient in dealing with natural disasters and there is a lot of manpower around to help with the digging. Heads turn for the latest volley of firecrackers, then get back to the business in hand.
"We're still digging the deeper section," he said, before walking away to continue his grim work.
Ms Guo is a 25-year-old doctor and a past pupil of the school.
"This school is an important middle school for the whole county. Many would come from Dujiangyan to study here," she says.
Another villager labouring with the soldiers paused to drink water, his hands trembling."Everything has fallen down. I don't have any words to tell you what this will do to our community."