Li Dengfeng, with his 4-year-old son in arms, sat desperately in the empty house, where the candle flickered beside the photo of his newly deceased wife.
The 30-year-old man was in tears all day on Sunday, China's traditional mid-Autumn Festival, an occasion of family reunion.
Li's wife, Zhao Dongxiang, went out to purchase meat for the festival seven days ago. She never came back.
"On that tragic day, I, along with my fellow villagers, was excavating the silt with spades like we were crazy," he said.
The desperate man found his wife's body two days later underneath the thick mud.
As of Saturday night, the death toll from the mud-rock flow in the northern Shanxi Province has risen to 254.
The mine is in Xiangfen County, Linfen City. Water roared downstream and inundated villages and an outdoor market crowded with customers.
Song Daigui, 56, was still waiting for his younger brother to return. Coming all the way from the southwestern Sichuan Province, Song's wait has become increasingly hopeless over the past days.
"Daiyou has been running a small restaurant near the mine for more than 10 years," Song said, referring to his beloved brother.
"We were waiting for him to come home for reunion this mid-Autumn Festival and I will wait on."
Rescue officials have assured him that the search would not stop until all of the dead were found.
"More than 300 rescuers were hunting for the bodies with the help of excavators," said Gong Kangmin, an official in charge of the rescue operation.
On the wall of a building of the Xinta Mining Company, a slogan calling for safe production revealed itself after the mud was scraped off.
Meng Xuenong, governor of north China's Shanxi Province, has resigned from his post Sunday in the wake of the disaster.
Source: Xinhua
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