China begins three days of mourning for earthquake victims in Sichuan province, with a three-minute silence and half-mast flags. Our correspondent Quentin Sommerville has sent this report from the town of Beichuan in south-western China:

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To the side of the mourners, bodies lay waiting to be buried. Rescue work has now resumed and two women were found alive here this morning, but these glimmers of hopeare increasingly rare.

Elsewhere in the province, two hundred rescue workers have been lost in a landslide; the aftershocks continue.

Quentin Sommerville, BBC News, Beichuan

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a collective wail
a long mournful high-pitched cry from many very sad people who have gathered in the same place at the same time

air raid sirens
devices for making a very loud noise to warn people of an attack by enemy aircraft (usually dropping bombs)

wreaths
arrangements of flowers and leaves, usually in a circular shape, used as a sign of respect and remembrance for people who have died

engulfed
completely covered, extremely badly affected

a landslide
a large mass of rock and earth moving suddenly and quickly down a mountain or cliff

resumed
begun again

glimmers of hope
here, faint signs that more people can be found alive and rescued

are increasingly rare
happen/occur less and less often

Elsewhere in
in another part of

aftershocks
small earthquakes that follow a larger one

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