A grim search continues

Xiao Hui, 40, left, waits with relatives as the search continues for student victims at Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China. Xiao’s family has been looking at bodies for three days in search of his missing 18-year-old son. As each body is recovered, relatives of missing students crowd around to see if it is that of their loved one. “We push through, looking at the shoes and clothes,” Xiao said. “The face is often too swollen to recognize.”  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Yang Xiaohua, 30, left, and a relative react after the body of Yang’s aunt was discovered in the earthquake devastation in Hanwang, China.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Yang Xiaohua burns funeral money in honor of her aunt, whose body lies under the white sheet in front of her home in Hanwang, China, that was leveled by the earthquake.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Li Wenquan, left, and wife Wang Tingting wait to learn the fate of their son, one of hundreds of students buried in rubble three days after the collapse of Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China. Authorities said the death toll from the magnitude 7.9 earthquake might reach 50,000.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Family members wait as the bodies of students are pulled from the site of Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China. About 300 of the 600 students who were in the four-story school building when it collapsed in the earthquake are buried in the rubble.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

A relative of one of the missing students from Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China, waits as bodies are pulled from the site. Parents said they had heard before Monday’s massive earthquake that the four-story school building, built in 1966, was in bad shape, but they had no idea it was so vulnerable. It collapsed in the quake.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

A body is wheeled away after being recovered from the collapse of Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China. In a now well-practiced routine, workers at the site place each body in a yellow bag, transfer it to a wheelbarrow and move it to a truck about a block away.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Anxious family members look on as a body is taken from the site of the collapsed Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Quake survivors examine a body pulled from the rubble of Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China, to try to determine if it is one of their relatives.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

A family leaves the Dongqi Middle School site in Hanwang, China, where the search continues for students buried under the school building’s collapse.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Rescue workers in Hanwang, China, retrieve the body of another earthquake victim. Nearly 21,000 people remain missing more than two weeks after the quake struck Sichuan province on May 12.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Workers recover a body from the earthquake devastation in China’s Sichuan province.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

The Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, China, is where a massive effort continues to free about half of the 700 students still under the rubble. Here family members look at a body to see if it is one of their loved ones. More than 72 hours after the quake rattled central China, rescuers appeared to shift from poring through downed buildings for survivors to the grim duty of searching for bodies with 10 million directly affected by Monday’s temblor.   (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times)