Grieving Parents Beg For Answers In China

Police Disperse Protesters Who Blame Shoddy School Construction In Deaths Of Their Children

(AP)  Chinese police Tuesday dragged away more than 100 parents protesting the deaths of their children in poorly constructed schools that collapsed in last month's earthquake.

The parents, many holding pictures of their dead children, were pulled down the street away from a courthouse in Dujiangyan, a resort city northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.

"Why?" some of them yelled. "Tell us something," they said as black-suited police wearing riot helmets yanked at them.

The parents had been kneeling in front of the courthouse yelling, "We want to sue." Their children attended a high school in Juyuan, near Dujiangyan, where 270 students died. The Southern Metropolis News quoted a rescuer as saying last month that rubble from the school showed that no steel reinforcing bars had been used in construction, only iron wire.

"The parents were here to give their report to the court," said one police officer who refused to give his name.

Calls to local police were not answered Tuesday.

Accusations that students died in the May 12 earthquake because of shoddy school construction have galvanized anger and grabbed the public's attention, and also worried the government.

President Hu Jintao and other top leaders have been shown repeatedly on state television visiting children in makeshift schools.

The government says the May 12 earthquake destroyed 7,000 classrooms.

Many parents have accused contractors of cutting corners when building the classrooms, resulting in schools that could not withstand the 7.9-magnitude quake. Pictures of collapsed schools surrounded by buildings still standing have fueled anger.

Tuesday's protest happened while Chinese leader Li Changchun, the country's fifth-ranked ruler, was touring other parts of the city. The official Xinhua News Agency said Li was checking heritage sites damaged in the earthquake.

An official from the foreign affairs office of the local government, Zao Ming, said, "this is not a good place to do interviews. ... In a disaster like this, there will be a lot of opinions. The government will solve their problems."

There were several Japanese reporters at the courthouse. One witness said the police told the parents "the Japanese are reporting bad things about you." The witness asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals by authorities.

An Associated Press reporter and two photographers covering the protest were forcibly dragged by the arms up the steps into the courthouse by police trying to prevent them from seeing the demonstration. They were held inside, along with two Japanese reporters, and questioned for a half-hour before being let go, after the protesters had been moved away.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Tuesday that the government had been unusually open about allowing journalists to report on the earthquake and its aftermath. He told a news conference in Beijing that the "principle of transparency and openness remains unchanged."

He said local authorities were making decisions based on the conditions in the disaster zone, though "they are not trying to block any news or to make difficulties for the reporters."

The confirmed death toll for China's worst disaster in three decades was raised Tuesday to 69,107, an increase of about 90 from the previous day, with more than 18,200 people still missing, the government said. The quake also left 5 million people homeless.

Meanwhile, Xinhua said authorities have delayed for two days a bid to divert water from a huge lake formed when the quake sent landslides tumbling into a river in northern Sichuan.

Water levels in the lake had been rising steadily and threatened to flood surrounding areas, prompting authorities to evacuate nearly 200,000 people already uprooted by the quake.

But Xinhua said with little rain forecast for the next several days, rescue workers were not likely to start draining off the water until Thursday. The work had been expected to start Tuesday.

Workers have already used heavy earth-moving equipment to dig a runoff channel to remove the water. The government is worried the newly formed lake could burst, sending a wall of water through a valley.

In an indication of how difficult rescue conditions are in parts of Sichuan, there is still no sign of a helicopter that crashed more than three days ago while ferrying survivors. Thousands of soldiers have combed remote mountains in search of the military helicopter.

The Russian-designed Mi-171 transport was carrying 19 people, 14 of them people injured in the quake, when it flew into fog and turbulence and crashed Saturday near the epicenter of the quake in the town of Wenchuan, state media reported.

[brianp55]

I travel to China several times a year on business. They use brick for everything possible...including housing, factory buildings, even sewer junctions. When they tear down a building, you can see guys sitting around chipping off the mortar and reclaiming the bricks...presumably for another round of construction. Basically, the internal composition of these structures consists of brick and brick fragments embedded in thick seams of mortar. My guess is that it wouldn''t take much horizontal movement for this structure to crumble.

[shanev137]

I must really just suck to have to live in China.

[minnick8-2009]

In asking, "Why," they should ask Buddah. Doesn''t Buddah answer?

[trenticus-2009]

While it is very unfortunate for those who suffered in the wake of their earthquake these folks should now recognise how Americans feel getting tainted and shoddy materials from China. It is their, as well as our, undoings....

[feelfree4u]

RE: "Grieving Parents Beg For Answers In China"

More like the US all the time.

[jboxton]

How can they tell their kids apart? They all look the same.

[fireceos]

Um, sorry, could it be that the Chinese schools were constructed by the CHINESE? When are people going to stop buying the inferior goods from China?

Besides, with the cost of fuel these days, the ''benefit'' of manufacturing cheap goods in China could come to an end and bring more good jobs back to the US. Consumers should DEMAND, that with the cost of oil, that Big Business does not ship from China (Or Indonesia and such) any more.

American consumers and customers need to take our country back, band together and demand that companies not waste oil and contribute to greenhouse warming, or whatever, and certainly demand better quality. We will all save money if we have quality goods made in the USA that will last a while. All we have to do to send the message is DEMAND it buy exercising our purchasing power more wisely. Who''s in?

[lixiaopeng]

There were as many as above 10600 young students died during the earthquake because of the shoddy school establishements. Why do the building constructions thrive in China? Just because of the corruptions. In China everyone who are involved in the constructions will surely make a lot of money by cutting corners for those constructions. Everyone in China knowns that scandals.

[hbevis]

China is bad NEWS anyway that you look at it, and we keep buying their shoddy goods. Why is our government letting this stuff enter our Country? WHY????
Because of payoff''s? Because our politicians are getting plenty of money from the thugs in CHINA?! And that is because they will do anything to stay in office. There has been several times that this has been all over the NEWS.