Journalists trying to interview residents -- including parents of children who died when schools collapsed like packs of cards -- have been accosted and shooed away by officials in a series of incidents in the past few weeks.

As early as May 6, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC), which the government officially regards as an illegal organisation, told members to exercise "extra caution" as the situation was "becoming more volatile."

Foreign media wishing to cover the anniversary of the 8.0-magnitude quake that left nearly 88,000 dead or missing have had two options.

One was to travel to the southwestern province of Sichuan on an official -- and stricly regimented -- press trip.

The other was to embark independently -- and risk being kicked out.

Tensions are running high in the quake zone, where many grieving parents of children who died in schools accuse local authorities of corruption.

At least 5,335 students died or are still listed as missing because their classrooms crumbled even as many adjacent structures stood firm, according to an official toll which is markedly lower than earlier estimates.

Critics have accused local officials of allowing schools to be built on the cheap and pocketing remaining construction money.

But foreign journalists have run into trouble seeking to dig deeper and to report on protests and petitions by parents in Sichuan.

The FCCC noted the case of a Finnish television crew in the town of Fuxin who were quickly surrounded by 10 people in plain clothes. They tried to grab their equipment, leading to jostling and a broken microphone.

"It was very violent," said journalist Katri Makkonen.

In the same area, a correspondent for Britain's Financial Times had to halt an interview with grieving parents after being surrounded by a dozen men, one of whom tried to take his camera before hitting him on the arm.

The next day, the team had their camera torn off its tripod when they were filming a protester.

In Juyuan, Radio France's China correspondent Dominique Andre had not even begun to hear people's stories when she was surrounded by four police vans and 15 to 20 uniformed men.

"It is the first time that I have been physically stopped from working -- without violence, but firmly," she told AFP.

"The only thing I did wrong was being there."

In Mianyang, two police officers burst into the town hall where Andre was interviewing a reconstruction official and forced her to erase photographs of petitioners she had taken at the entrance.

On May 6 an AFP team was asked to leave the village of Wufu, near Mianzhu, despite being told they could work there.

Two days later they were forced out of Juyuan, and were stopped again when they tried to return Monday. They said large numbers of police in uniform and plain clothes were present throughout the quake zone.

Last week, the vice head of the Sichuan propaganda department accused some Western journalists of creating trouble.

"A very few journalists are not going to the disaster area to report, but are inciting the crowds, asking people to organise," Hou Xiongfei said.

The Chinese press, which interviewed angry parents a year ago, has stayed quiet on the shoddy schools question, instead multiplying positive reports on current reconstruction efforts.

Yet in 2007, accredited foreign journalists saw a glimmer of hope when they were told they could report freely in the whole of China apart from the Tibet region -- a rule reiterated in October 2008.

Ma Zhaoxu, a foreign ministry spokesman, has said Beijing is determined to provide all necessary assistance to foreign reporters and that "we are working very hard to have this country as open as possible."

The reality on the ground can be different, however. When tensions emerge, Beijing says local authorities are free to decide whether the media should be welcome -- or not.

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