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Children's Day Holds Grief

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The New York Times

Published: June 2, 2008

BEIJING - It is meant to be a celebration of childhood, but in Sichuan province on Sunday, Children's Day turned into a day of mourning and a provocation to parents whose children were crushed to death by falling school buildings during the powerful earthquake three weeks ago.

At a half-dozen schoolyards across the region, where jagged piles of former classrooms are encircled by undamaged apartment buildings, parents came to grieve and to demand answers.

In the town of Wufu, they shouted slogans about corrupt politicians.

In Mianzhu, they staged a sit-in.

And at Juyuan, they were shooed away by soldiers who had sealed off the grounds of a middle school so workers could search for the bodies of six children still missing. By evening, one body had been recovered.

Government officials, responding to the outcry from parents, have promised to investigate why so many school buildings fell.

In Beijing, the State Council said last week that it would punish construction companies that built the schools and the officials who inspected the work.

In Sichuan province, a local official resigned, saying he felt responsible for the large death toll of students and teachers, thought to be in excess of 10,000.

The official promises and apologies, however, have failed to mollify the parents, most of whom lost their only child. They have been collecting petition signatures and demanding copies of building blueprints, and have vowed to sue local officials.

They also have continued to stage their heart-rending protests, a nettlesome challenge to the government, which has been trying to keep the nation focused on stories about heroism, philanthropy and perseverance.
QUAKE TOLL
•The government raised the death toll from the May 12 earthquake to just more than 69,000, with another 18,800 missing and thought to be dead.

•A helicopter evacuating injured survivors crashed in the fog near Wenchuan on Saturday, with the fate of the five crew members and 14 passengers unclear.

•On Sunday, government news agencies reported the successful completion of a canal designed to drain water from a blocked river that had been threatening more than a million people downstream.

Source: The New York Times

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