As China began on Monday a three-day national mourning of the deceased in the May 12 deadly quake which claimed over 30,000 lives, the unprecedented move drew attention of the U.S. media.

MSNBC.com carried a lengthy story of the Associated Press about the mourning on its main page, together with a photo which features a group of Chinese soldiers standing in silence in salute of the dead among piled debris of the magnitude-8.0 earthquake.

CNN.com, whose sister television network has given an unprecedented coverage of the quake over the past week, posted a feature story of its own staff correspondents filed from Chengdu, capital of the worst-hit Chinese province of Sichuan.

"Crowds gathered in the devastated city of Chengdu shouted 'Farewell, friends!' and 'Rebuild' as China began three days of national mourning Monday to honor the tens of thousands killed by last week's massive earthquake," the story said in its lead.

"Traffic halted, work stopped and people bowed their heads across the country to observe three minutes of silence as air raid sirens, car, truck and train horns sounded a 'wail of grief' at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT), exactly one week since the earthquake struck," it said, "Even rescue workers paused from the job of clearing debris and searching for survivors to mark the moment."

"During the moment of silence they were all holding hands, some of them were weeping ... They are in a state of utter disbelief and utter shock that so many people have died," CNN correspondent Eunice Yoon was quoted as saying.

Mainstream U.S. print media, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, did not carry stories about the mourning in their editions published on Monday because of a half day of time lag.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2008)