YANGWA, China (AP) — Surrounded by destruction, survivors of an earthquake mourned the dead on Wednesday and endured freezing cold in emergency shelters, unsure how they would rebuild their lives in the remote mountains of northwest China.

“Look at this,” said Han Zhongmin, as he and his wife retrieved some belongings from the ruins of their house built six years ago in Yangwa Village. “My house turned into something like this overnight.”

Houses collapsed and collapsed in an earthquake on Monday evening that killed at least 134 people and injured more than 900 others. Most of the victims were in Gansu province, the rest in the neighboring province of Qinghai.

In the predawn darkness, Ma Lianqiang stood next to his late wife’s blanket-wrapped body in a tent-like makeshift shelter lit by a single overhead lamp. His wife was struck and buried by debris in her mother’s home, where she had remained because of her illness.

Ma and other members of his extended family survived despite extensive damage to their home in Yangwa, Gansu Province. His father pulled Ma’s son, whose back was slightly injured, from the rubble. His uncle said they heard the earthquake and then the house started to collapse.

“We crawled out in fear,” said the uncle, Ma Chengming.

Nearly 15,000 houses collapsed in Gansu and more than 87,000 people were displaced, provincial officials said at a news conference on Wednesday. Many spent the night in emergency shelters set up in the area as temperatures fell well below freezing.

In the north, searchers in Qinghai searched for 13 missing people in an area where landslides flooded two villages and partially buried houses. Excavators dug into the sea of ​​earth and rescue workers tried to break into some buried houses from the roofs.

The number of missing people fell from 16 on Wednesday. According to a CCTV report, the death toll in the province rose again on Wednesday afternoon.

Gansu officials said their search and rescue efforts were essentially complete as of Tuesday afternoon. The death toll in the province remained at 113 and the number of injured rose to 782. Combined with 198 in Qinghai, the total number of injured reached nearly 1,000.

Villagers in Yangwa huddled against the cold and ate instant noodle soup served in a tent made of clear green plastic sheeting. Han Fujun said he had more immediate concerns than what to do with his destroyed home.

“It is still a problem to eat enough and stay warm,” he said in the makeshift shelter.

The earthquake struck in a poor, rural area on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, home to several predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. It is located about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) southwest of Beijing, the Chinese capital.

People wept as the carpet-covered body of Ma Lianqiang’s wife was carried away on what appeared to be a metal bedstead following outdoor Muslim burial rites.

The death toll from an earthquake in China was the highest in nine years. Experts blamed several factors for the high number, including the shallow depth of the quake and poorer construction quality in the poor region.

“Now it’s our lives that matter,” said Ma Bajin from Yangwa. “If we’re not here, there’s no survival.”

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Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Associated Press researchers Yu Bing and Wanqing Chen and video producer Caroline Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.