DUJIANGYAN, China — Yesterday afternoon, a few hours after the earthquake hit, some victims carried out of the collapsed Juyuan Middle School were still alive.

This morning, almost all those being carried from the rubble are dead, borne on doors by Chinese soldiers who run along a cleared path to a series of makeshift shelters where dozens of bodies are laid out for relatives to identify.

It is a gauntlet of grief, kept clear of pushing crowds of desperate parents by security officers with locked arms.

"My niece, I don't know if she survived," said Yang Xianhui, 43, a farmer in a straw hat, fighting for position in the mud, straining to see the procession of bodies, hoping to recognize the shoes or jeans of a still-breathing loved one.

Behind the desperate throngs is the tomb being excavated, a site where hundreds of children were buried within a few seconds after the earthquake measuring 7.9 magnitude struck yesterday. Two giant cranes struggle to lift huge pieces of concrete as teams of orange-suited emergency workers, white-coated medics and police wrestle with the rubble.

One four-story shard of the building remained standing. Nearby, two ambulance medics lie exhausted in a gurney. As the number of injured has declined, the rescue workers are able to take a brief break.

In the muddy parking lot nearby, amid a sea of raincoats, makeshift shelters have been constructed of sticks, lumber and the omnipresent cheap polyester tarping used for suitcases in developing countries. Under the tarp, pallets and doors support dozens of bodies, some wrapped in plastic sheeting with only their adolescent sports shoes showing, others more visible, their hair matted with dust and debris from the fallen building.

Families wail at the horror of having lost a child. Here and there, a candle fights against the wind, sticks of incense mark a life and fireworks are set off to help send a loved one off to the spirit world.

At the edge of one shelter, a body lies on a palette in the mud and rain, 10 members of his family hugging and touching his face, shoulders and hair. Their tears mix with the dirt.

Bloated blue hands witness the hell the child experienced in his last moments of life. As the crowd looks on, the mother lovingly struggles to open a rigor mortis-clenched fist.

Nearby, a new victim is brought in, his lips, nose and cheeks smashed to the right side by a blunt object. His parents yell and quickly cover him with a blanket.

Wang Hong, 41, dips her plastic slippers in the muck for better traction. She's been waiting since yesterday afternoon. Her 15-year-old nephew was found dead then. Now, she's waiting to learn the fate of her niece.

Word spread like wildfire shortly after the earthquake that the school was the worst hit in the disaster zone.

Those in the crowd question the quality of construction. Only the classrooms seem to have collapsed, not the dorms or teacher's offices. In some classes of 75 students, only two or three survived.

"This is the most devastating thing imaginable to lose a child," Wang Hong said. "And most everyone is losing an only child. This community will live with this pain for years, decades."