Quake rescuers fight fatigue and seek signs of life

By John Ruwitch

BEICHUAN, China (Reuters) - A billboard on the road into Beichuan shows a picturesque hill town with a river snaking past. What remains after Monday's earthquake is a horror scene.

Navy medic Han Zhihai, walking into the near-deserted town from a camp nearby after taking a lunch break, points to a huge boulder, one of many by the dirt-covered road that careened down the adjacent mountain during the giant tremor.

"Legs," he says.

Jutting from under the rock are two legs, feet pointing down, one still wearing a purple high heeled shoe.

Further into town, some 90 km (60 miles) northeast of the epicenter of the quake, streets are buckled and cracked and every building is ruined in one way or another.

Some crumbled into unrecognizable piles of wood, concrete and bricks. Others came clapping down, the floors finally resting stacked like pancakes with no space in between. Many more buildings dropped largely intact from the second floor up, crushing the ground floor and everything in it.

"That used to be a school," one of Han's teammates said, pointing towards a giant pile of boulders and dirt that slid down a mountain. The only thing left standing was a flagpole with the national flag still flying.

"At some of these places it will be impossible to extract bodies."