The teenage girl, Zhong Suyan, was one of thousands of children killed in the May 12 earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan province when their schools came crashing down, often even as adjacent buildings were left standing.

The Sichuan government last week announced that 5,335 students had died or were missing in the earthquake -- the first such official estimate.

"They said those who lost their children should have another one, but I'm too old, and I don't have the energy to raise a child. Besides, I'm divorced," said You, 39, from her "quake village" -- row upon row of makeshift homes.

"Nowadays, I live by myself here. I am only a peasant, and I don't have a job."

The village sits on the bank of a small river and looks down on a vast construction site where three schools are being built under a huge programme to help the region after the quake, which left 87,000 dead or missing.

Some 3,340 schools need to be rebuilt.

But across the river is the ruin of the Juyuan Middle School, where not just You's daughter, but 200 other students and teachers lost their lives. It is a scene of tragedy and of unanswered questions.

Immediately after the quake, grieving parents both in Juyuan and elsewhere in the disaster zone said poor building standards were to blame for the huge death toll among school children and pointed the finger at corrupt officials.

Just hours after the quake struck, the first protests by furious relatives began, and in the following days they grew louder, with demands for an investigation and for those responsible to be punished.

But those hoping for emotional closure may face a long wait. One year on, the government still maintains it does not know why so many schools collapsed.

"Up to now we haven't found that anybody caused or did anything to make the building vulnerable so that it collapsed and people died when the earthquake struck," said Tang Kai, a planning official, at a Beijing briefing last week.

In Sichuan, meanwhile, local officials seek to curb the anger with a mixture of propaganda, money and intimidation, according to locals.

"The government said that the earthquake itself was the cause of the collapse, and that there was no human involvement," You said.

She explained that officials had paid her 30,000 yuan (4,400 dollars) in compensation, which she split with her ex-husband, who has since remarried.

The amount is roughly the average compensation paid to parents in the quake zone, according to state media.

But with the government keen to prevent the issue sparking unrest, some officials have doled out much more, locals said.

In Juyuan and in Wufu village near Mianzhu city, where protests were the fiercest, locas said the compensation reached as high as 170,000 yuan.

Meanwhile, in addition to the money, the government has mobilised its considerable security apparatus to keep a lid on unrest, critics say.

According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a mainland-based network of activists, veteran campaigner Huang Qi, 44, was charged in July with "illegal possession of state secrets" after he collected data on collapsed schools.

Tan Zuoren, an environmentalist and writer, was detained by Chengdu police on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power" on March 28 and for trying to organise investigations into the school collapses, it said.

The government, which has accused some unidentified foreign media of "inciting" people in the quake region to protest, has demonstrated its reluctance to allow foreign reporting of the school tragedy.

Police in Juyuan on Friday stopped AFP journalists from interviewing locals around the site of the old school house and ordered them to leave the township.

On Wednesday, authorities in Wufu village expelled AFP journalists, saying interviewing villagers was not allowed.

earlier related report
Cause for quake school collapses still not found: China
China said Friday it had not yet identified why a large number of schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake, killing thousands of students and devastating bereaved parents.

"Up to now we haven't found that anybody caused or did anything to make the building vulnerable so that it collapsed and people died when the earthquake struck," said Tang Kai, a planning official, just days ahead of the quake anniversary.

"The job is huge and the workload is very heavy," Tang, a senior official at the ministry of housing and urban-rural development, told reporters.

The collapse of schools when the 8.0-magnitude quake hit the southwestern province of Sichuan on May 12 last year is one of the most sensitive aspects of the disaster, as critics say this was due to shoddily-constructed buildings.

According to a first official tally made public Thursday, 5,335 students died or went missing in the earthquake -- lower than initial estimates -- as their classrooms collapsed while nearby structures stood firm.

Bereaved parents have demanded a report into why so many school buildings fell apart so easily, but Tang said identifying the cause was a difficult process.

Investigators still had to figure out if there were problems with the design, construction process, supervision or maintenance, he said.

His comments came as China promised to step up the pace of reconstruction in Sichuan and neighbouring affected provinces Gansu and Shaanxi, saying it would complete the process a year ahead of schedule.

Mu Hong, another top planning official, said that under initial plans from September last year, "we decided it would take three years for all the recovery and reconstruction efforts to be completed".

"Now we have decided that we will accelerate the process so that it will be completed in two years, which means the finishing line is September 2010."

Mu is vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission which has planning control over the economy.

The massive May 12 quake left nearly 87,000 people dead or missing and more than five million others homeless, and a large part of the reconstruction has been aimed at rebuilding homes, schools and hospitals.

Mu said that by the end of April 2009, around 360 billion yuan (53 billion dollars) had been invested in more than 21,000 projects in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News