By Lucy Hornby
PINGTONG, China (Reuters) - From tent cities in strickenSichuan province to Beijing's Tiananmen Square, sirens wailedand millions of Chinese stood for three minutes on Monday tomourn tens of thousands who died in last week's earthquake.
The moment of grief was observed across the vast country of1.3 billion people at 2.28 p.m. (7.28 a.m. British time),exactly a week after the 7.9 magnitude quake that ravaged thesouthwestern province.
"I think the three minutes was important because it meansthat everyone, from the central government down to everyindividual, is thinking of us. Because this is worse than awar," said He Ling, a policeman in Pingtong town, which wasalmost totally wrecked by the earthquake.
Even as the rescuers stopped work, another aftershockrattled the area and set off a small landslide from a nearbycliff.
Troops and medics lined up with bowed heads and a hugeChinese flag flew from a pile of rubble.
The death toll from the quake rose to more than 34,000 onMonday, but thousands remain buried under the rubble andofficials expect the final figure to top 50,000.
The government put direct economic losses in Sichuan aloneat about 67 billion yuan (4.9 billion pounds).
Air raid sirens, as well as car, train and ship hornswailed around the country to mark the one-week anniversary.Flags flew at half mast and cinemas were ordered to stopshowing films for the mourning period.
In Beichuan, another town devastated by the quake, severalhundred rescuers bowed their heads and laid wreaths made fromtwigs and scrap paper pulled from the debris.
"We're all feeling very heavy hearted. So many peopleweren't saved," a soldier said, standing by the remains of awrecked school.
In Beijing, the country's top leaders, led by President HuJintao, wore white flowers on their chests and bowed insilence.
Nearby, in Tiananmen Square -- where pro-democracy protestswere crushed by the army in 1989 -- the sombre mood quicklyturned into a vocal show of patriotism. About 1,000 flag-wavingpeople marched in the vast square, singing the national anthemand chanting "Go China Go" and "Rebuild Sichuan".
SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS
Despite treacherous conditions in the quake zone, thesearch for survivors went on as families clung to hope fortheir loved ones.
Bad weather and hundreds of aftershocks have hamperedrescue operations. The Transport Ministry said on Monday thatmore than 200 relief workers had been buried by mudflows inrecent days.
Details of the accidents were not immediately available. Itwas unclear whether any of those buried had survived.
There have been numerous rockslides from unstable mountainslopes, and blocked rivers swollen by heavy rain havethreatened to burst their banks.
Authorities believe more than 5,000 are still buried underthe rubble in Sichuan. Most are feared dead, but some are stillbeing pulled out alive.
There was a burst of elation in ruined Beichuan, when onewoman was found alive.
Wang Hongguo, head of the rescue team, said she had foundthe survivor under a mass of concrete. "We had to pull her outvery gradually. She looked quite sturdy, so she might pullthrough."
Rescuers also found a 50-year-old woman alive in thewreckage of a residential building at a coal mine.
But they mostly had the gruesome job of recoveringdecomposing bodies. Dozens were pulled from the rubble inBeichuan on Monday, and rescuers scattered lime and splasheddisinfectant to prevent disease.
Farmer Wang Hongchen and his wife Chen Guangfen scrambledover hundreds of metres of rubble to look for their son, whoworked 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 tosurvive," Wang said, in between shouting out his son's nameover the ruins.
"There's nothing I want more than to find him alive," saidChen. "Other people who know their relatives have died can callthis a memorial day, or a funeral, but not me yet."
Some 245,000 people were injured in the disaster, the worstto hit China since 1976, but rescuers had yet to reach all thestricken villages, Xinhua reported.
On Monday, the Foreign Ministry appealed to theinternational community to provide more tents for about 4.8million people who lost their homes in the quake.
So far, 10.8 billion yuan has been received from donors athome and abroad, China said. Rescue teams from Russia, Japan,Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and Singapore are alsosearching for survivors.
(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beichuan and byBen Blanchard, Benjamin Kang Lim and Ian Ransom in Beijing;Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Roger Crabb)