ONGOING RESCUE

Rescuers and search dogs are now working in remote, sparsely populated areas and officials attribute Wednesday's sharp rise in reported casualties to the inaccessibility and remoteness of villages.

Downpours and traffic disruptions have put acute time pressure on rescuers and the likelihood of finding survivors declines every minute. On a ruined street of Longtoushan, an orange-clad soldier and her dog continue their search for survivors as helicopters hover overhead.

"The 'golden 72 hours' are up, but we'll keep with our mission and not give up hope," said Dai Yajuan, 23, of Chengdu Military Area Command.

On Monday, Dai and her colleagues recovered the bodies of three women from their collapsed home. Seventy rescuers from Dai's engineering corps have retrieved a dozen bodies.

On a heap of rubble, Wang Ping, 39, silently watches a group of police attempting to reach her husband and son buried in their home. On Tuesday morning, Wang saw the legs of her husband and a detector has located her son. Both were in the second floor when the building collapsed. A whole day has gone by and rescuers are still digging.

POVERTY, FRAGILITY

Survivors are risking life and limb to retrieve their belongings.

Chang Cheng, 28, found two books of his family tree in the debris. "My father died in the disaster. I know these things meant a lot to him. I don't care about all the other things left in our home," he said.

Wang Facai managed to recover 16,000 yuan (about 2,600 U.S. dollars), along with quilts and clothes from the ruins of his home and immediately put the cash in a nearby bank.

"Many survivors have begged us to help search for their property. Sometimes we had to say yes, even though it slows down our efforts to save people," Dai said.

The earthquake has revealed the acute poverty and fragility in the region, which appears pretty much unchanged, despite having been previously exposed by disasters of this kind.

In Ludian, nearly 60 percent of farmers live on less than 1 dollar per day and houses built with mud clay are the best they can afford.

A national plan to improve earthquake defense promised to make buildings in most urban areas resistant to 6.0 magnitude earthquakes, but in Yunnan, especially in remote areas, most infrastructure and houses are not resistant to earthquakes, said Zhang Junwei, a director of Yunnan earthquake administration, If villagers had money to rebuild and maintain their homes, less damage and fewer casualties would have resulted.

HOPING FOR MIRACLES

As the search goes on, "miracles" inspire optimism among rescuers. Two senior residents of Babao Village, aged 88 and 76, were pulled from the debris about 50 hours after the disaster. Both are in a stable condition.

Figures from the National Health and Family Planning Commission showed that 2,833 people had been treated for their injuries as of 4 p.m. Tuesday, with 1,295 of them hospitalized. Among those hospitalized, 122 are seriously injured and another 40 critically.