Among the ruins of Yingxiu at the epicentre of China's calamitous earthquake, survivors remain, defying the pall of death to keep vigil over lost loved ones or even now looking to rebuild homes amid the devastation.

In this valley town in the southwestern province of Sichuan searchers keep digging out hundreds of bodies, hauling them to mass graves lit at night by arc lights.

But among the stench and debris and the landslides gashing nearby hills after the May 12 quake, hundreds of people insist on staying or returning, often hoping to see loved ones before they disappear into the three-metre-deep trenches on a slope above the town.

Near what was a government office, one woman sat on a chair beside a mass of toppled concrete as if waiting for an appointment. She was "keeping company" with her husband, hoping to be there if the searchers in blue or orange body-suits find him under the rubble.

"You can't take away the body yourself or give it a separate burial," said the woman surnamed Cui, a 38-year-old office worker who travelled from Chengdu, Sicuan province's capital.

"I just want to keep him company and stop him from feeling lonely, so I talk to him and wait ... It's also a comfort for me."

Other people said they would stay to remake their homes and revive this small hub of tourism and business, now mostly levelled, with other buildings cracked and tottering.

"Living off the generosity of friends and relatives and the government is not a long-term proposition, said Zhao Daixing, a 58-year-old farmer whose wife, son and brother died in the quake.

"I'm absolutely staying here so I can help rebuild our home," he said with a cheery decisiveness that belied his losses.

Officials on the site said the government has also vowed to at least partly rebuild Yingxiu, where an estimated 8,600 of 13,000 residents died in the afternoon quake that survivors said turned the sky dark with dust.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Yingxiu on Saturday, accompanied by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, to show support for the relief work, Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 80,000 people are dead or missing from China's worst earthquake in three decades, the government has said.

But as China weighs rebuilding or moving its shattered towns, survivors also face wrenching choices between mourning and renewal, between staying in familiar but haunted hometowns or leaving for safer but unfamiliar ones.

"Staying here will be hard," said Wang Fuoxiu, 51, waiting for word of a missing five-year-old grandson. "Leaving will also be hard ... For now, I just try to get through the day."

WAITING FOR THE SEARCHERS

Many remaining residents are waiting for troops to pull bodies from a primary school, where perhaps 400 or more children were trapped, many entangled in staircases, with faces frozen in the dread of their last moments, said searchers.

Living in a lean-to of plastic sheets, Liu Suqing said she wanted to be sure her late eight-year-old son, Leng Lianping, was buried carefully and respectfully, even if in a collective grave.

"After the quake, we ran to school and yelled 'Help! Help!', but no one came, and then we tried to find the children with our bare hands but didn't know where they were," said Liu, a 33-year-old shop assistant.

"Now I want him to know I was here when he comes out."

Many bodies were hauled up the hill unaccompanied by kin, but searchers said they were keeping DNA samples for identification. When families were there, they were taken up to the grave to bid farewell to their dead.

But after areas are scoured for bodies, troops are quickly moving to erase the ruins and blow up fatally damaged buildings. They have also built a temporary bridge strong enough to help haul away the mountains of shattered concrete.

Despite the grief, dirt and potential disease now pervading Yingxiu, some residents said moving would be unthinkable.

One old man still here said he would not consider even a temporary shift to Dujiangyan, the small city now some three hours' rough and muddy drive away that has taken many refugees.

"I could never handle the climate in Dujiangyan. It's different from here, hugely different," said farmer Wang Guangli, 73, who had strung up smoked bacon on the side of his shanty.

"I'll stay here until I die. I was lucky to live through the earthquake, so I must be meant to stay here."

But for others, the sight of the ruins was too much.

Liu Yunzhong, who survived the quake, said he came back only to look for documents from the company office he ran and shook his head in the direction of the hill graves and landslides.

"It's scary, and I don't want to hang around," he said, picking through the scattered papers and debris that fill the streets here. "I can't remember much now of what happened and I don't like being here now because it could force me to remember."