Survivors of the Sichuan earthquake have told how they held on for days trapped in the rubble as they waited for rescuers to reach them.

As more people were hauled out of the wreckage, a full eight days since the quake, the hospital wards in Mianyang continued to throng with those who were recovering from their ordeals.

Among the most remarkable stories was that of two married doctors who were buried under 30 feet of debris in their flat.

The wife was rescued after three days, but instead of going to hospital she waited, shouting encouragement to her husband so he would not give up hope that help was at hand.

He was finally freed on Sunday after six days with his leg trapped under bricks and mortar in what was once his kitchen.

The couple were last night being cared for at Mianyang central hospital. The wife, Dr Xie Shouju, who worked in the maternity department of Beichuan county hospital, was said to be virtually unharmed by her ordeal. Her husband, Tang Xiong, 33, from the internal medicine department, was said to be “very weak” but to have no major injuries.

Tian Yun, an orthopaedic surgeon, said he was saved by his medical knowledge and his wife. He knew to keep calm, to conserve energy, and to sleep, which he was able to do knowing he did not need to shout for help because his wife was calling updates on the rescue down to him.

“He knew his wife was outside,” Dr Tian said. “He knew his wife needed him and he needed his wife. He wanted to survive.”

When he was finally brought out he was able to express his greatest wishes to his rescuers: to join the Communist Party, and to have a child.

The official death toll from the quake has risen dramatically to over 40,000 as relief workers finally reached all the remote hillside villages cut off by landslides. The government also said about 30,000 people were missing, and estimates nearly 250,000 people have been injured.

The latest survivors to be pulled free included an executive at a power plant. He drank water through a straw during a 30-hour operation to cut a tunnel through 10 slabs of cement.

Later yesterday evening, a woman in her sixties who had been first trapped by a landslide and then became wedged between two rocks in an aftershock was extricated still conscious from a destroyed temple. She had been buried for more than eight days.

At West China Hospital, in the provincial capital Chengdu, wards and corridors were packed to overflowing.

More patients were being assessed in a tent in the forecourt after being transferred from hospitals across the region, including two women aged 102 and 90.

Liu Rui, 34, described how he joked with two colleagues for two and a half days under a collapsed block at the coalmine where they worked.

“My left side and arm were pinned under a steel pipe, and my legs under another one,” he said.

“It didn’t seem that painful, but after they brought me here they had to amputate both legs to stop gangrene spreading to the kidney.”

One of his workmates, Liu Zigui, was lying on top of him.

Rescue workers were able to drip water and milk into the gap on a stick and straw.

“We were able to crack jokes,” he said. “Because Liu Zigui was on top, he said he was going out now and would wait for me outside.

“I said not to wait, I would just hang around here, I’d had four bottles of milk.

“He died, though, when they got him out. He had internal injuries.”