Bejing Strong-Arms Grieving Parents

Local government leaders have repeatedly promised to get to the bottom of why a staggering 7,000 classrooms collapsed in the quake, killing about 10,000 children. But there is little evidence that they have conducted more than a cursory examination, and there are hints of a cover-up. Even as negotiations with some parents continue [those who have not already been pressured or strong-armed into signing 'settlement agreements'], local governments have bulldozed the remains of many schools, appearing to close the door on a full investigation. The issue remains one of the most delicate facing the Chinese government. Many parents accuse local officials of negligence or corruption during the construction of the schools. Some say they still hope the central government will take action, and they plan to go to Beijing to file petitions after the Olympics. “We don’t want to get the government in trouble ahead of the Olympics,” Mr. Yu said. “We don’t want to hurt the nation’s image.” Poor suckers. You can read the full story at The New York Times - if you can stand it without getting sick to your stomach. I, for one, will not watch a single moment of the Olympics on television. I hope a gigantic earthquake such as has never been seen before strikes Bejing and swallows everyone and everything up during the Opening Ceremony. Justice would scarce be served by such a happening, but it would be something, some small bit of recompense and evening out of the scales.

Chinese Authorities Attack Grieving Parents

From The New York Times Grieving Chinese Parents Protest School Collapse By EDWARD WONG Published: July 17, 2008 BEIJING — Hundreds of parents protesting shoddy school construction that they said led to the deaths of their children in the May earthquake were harassed by riot police officers on Tuesday and criticized by local government officials, the parents said Wednesday. Local officials were also trying to buy the silence of the parents by offering them about $8,800 if they signed a contract agreeing not to raise the school construction issue again, several parents said. The confrontation between the parents and the police officers erupted on Tuesday morning as 200 parents protested outside government offices in Mianzhu, a city in the earthquake-ravaged Sichuan Province, said Liu Guangyuan, a protester who lost a son when a school collapsed. It was the latest in a series of protests held by grieving parents, many of whom lost their only child in the earthquake. With an eye to the approach of the Olympic Games in Beijing next month, however, the Chinese authorities have ordered the police to crack down on the rallies. Chinese news organizations have also been told by the central government not to report on the schools, and all journalists have been barred from approaching the collapse sites. The parents in Mianzhu on Tuesday were demanding that the government offer a full report on why Dongqi Middle School collapsed, killing at least 200 of the school’s 900 students. The Chinese government has reported that a total of 7,000 classrooms collapsed during the May 12 earthquake, and by some estimates 10,000 of the nearly 70,000 confirmed deaths were of schoolchildren. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, many local governments promised to investigate the school collapses, but parents across Sichuan Province complained that they had yet to receive any reports. The parents of the Dongqi schoolchildren gathered at 10 a.m. and demanded to meet the mayor, but no officials came out for any serious discussion, said Mr. Liu, a carpenter. Instead, an official, saying that the parents were violating public security laws, “ordered us to leave within two minutes,” Mr. Liu said. “Then the riot police started pushing and dragging. Some of the outraged parents got into physical confrontations with the police. I saw eight or nine parents carried away to patrol cars parked on the side.” Mr. Liu said he had heard that the parents were taken to a police station, but it was unclear exactly what happened to them. A person answering the telephone at the Mianzhu government offices on Wednesday said officials were in a meeting and could not talk to reporters. Mr. Liu said that the parents of Dongqi students were offended by the offer of money from the Sichuan provincial government if they agreed to drop the issue. The amount “is far from enough to appease the grief,” he said. Mr. Liu said the parents of children who attended Dongqi Middle School would petition their case at higher levels of government. Dongqi Middle School was built in 1975 and renovated in 1981, Mr. Liu said. “When my son entered the school in 2006, they promised to build new buildings,” he added. “This was written in the enrollment welcome letter. But they didn’t keep their word, and then the earthquake happened.” Zhang Longfu, whose daughter died in another Mianzhu school that collapsed, said parents at that school had also been offered $8,800 plus a pension upon retirement in their 60s if they signed a contract acknowledging that their children died in the schools because of the earthquake and agreeing not to disturb reconstruction efforts. “Parents are generally concerned about the contract and are not willing to sign it because they’re afraid that by signing it, they’ll be admitting that their children’s deaths are not related to the shoddy school building,” said Mr. Zhang, whose daughter died in the collapse of Fuxin No. 2 Primary School. Mr. Zhang said some leaders of the parents group met on Tuesday with the vice mayor of Mianzhu, who he said acknowledged that the schools were poorly built and had some hidden safety problems but insisted that the earthquake was ultimately responsible for the collapses. Hundreds of parents also held a rally on Tuesday in Shifang to protest government attempts to give them compensation in return for silence, according to a report from Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit news agency that receives financing from the United States government. The report said that the local government was offering to hand out $14,600 to each household in which a child had died in a school collapse. Zhang Jing and Huang Yuanxi contributed research.

Sichuan Earthquake Caused by Nuclear Explosion?

I don't know what to make of this, but it sure is an interesting story! From The Epoch Times Nuclear Explosion Occurs Near Epicenter of the Sichuan Earthquake, Expert Says By Wu Weilin Epoch Times Staff Jun 03, 2008 Boxun News, a Chinese-language Web site based outside China, reported that an unnamed expert has claimed that there was a nuclear explosion near the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake, based on witness reports and the discovery of concrete rubble believed to have come from an underground military installation. The news of this nuclear explosion has raised questions about the cause of the earthquake. Mr. He, a local resident, stated that when the earthquake occurred on May 12, people saw something erupt from the top of a mountain next to the valley, "It looked like toothpaste being squeezed out," said He. "No, it wasn't [magma]. It was these concrete pieces. The eruption lasted about three minutes." According to a China News Services (CNS) report on May 31, 2008, paramedics from People's Liberation Army (PLA) hospitals and psychologists from Beijing onsite May 23 found concrete debris at the bottom of a valley near the epicenter. The half-mile-wide valley was covered with debris 10 - 20 inches thick, covering the valley floor for almost 1.5 miles. No major construction was occurring in the area at the time of the earthquake. The thickness of the concrete pieces seemed to match that used in China's underground military bases, according to Boxun's expert. He explained that while there are documented cases that earthquakes cause volcanic eruptions, there are no accounts of eruptions ejecting concrete. Based on the CNS report and timing of the eruption at the scene, there seemed to be no evidence of natural volcanic activity. The expert stated he was certain a nuclear explosion shattered the underground concrete structures, hurling debris into the air. At least one of China's nuclear military bases is located in Mianyang City, Sichuan, near the epicenter. Chinese Internet surfers commented that right after the quake military Special Forces blocked traffic heading toward the epicenter on the mountain, and men in white chemical protective clothing in military vehicles were also spotted driving toward the mountain. Rescue personnel near the epicenter were all military, according to witnesses. The expert believes the nuclear explosion was not confined to the underground test area and has caused radiation contamination, stating that in a call to Beijing he recommended authorities accept help from other countries, seal the area, find and provide help to those who had been exposed to contamination during the rescue work, and take emergency measures to prevent water contamination. The expert believes that the nuclear explosion caused the recent 8.0 magnitude Sichuan earthquake in China. However, other experts referenced by Boxun withheld judgment as to whether the explosion caused the earthquake or the earthquake the explosion. Click here to read the original article in Chinese

A Grieving Nation Asks: Why?

A picture is worth a thousand words. This is what's left of the school talked about in the article.

From The New York Times
Chinese Are Left to Ask Why Schools Crumbled in Quake

By JIM YARDLEY
Published: May 25, 2008
This story was reported by Jim Yardley, Jake Hooker and Andrew C. Revkin, and was written by Mr. Yardley.

DUJIANGYAN, China — The earthquake’s destruction of Xinjian Primary School was swift and complete. Hundreds of children were crushed as the floors collapsed in a deluge of falling bricks and concrete. Days later, as curiosity seekers came with video cameras and as parents came to grieve, the four-story school was no more than rubble.

In contrast, none of the nearby buildings were badly damaged. A separate kindergarten less than 20 feet away survived with barely a crack. An adjacent 10-story hotel stood largely undisturbed. And another local primary school, Beijie, catering to children of the elite, was in such good condition that local officials were using it as a refugee center.

“This is not a natural disaster,” said Ren Yongchang, whose 9-year-old son died inside the destroyed school. His hands were covered in plaster dust as he stood beside the rubble, shouting and weeping as he grabbed the exposed steel rebar of a broken concrete column. “This is not good steel. It doesn’t meet standards. They stole our children.”

There is no official figure on how many children died at Xinjian Primary School, nor on how many died at scores of other schools that collapsed in the powerful May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province. But the number of student deaths seems likely to exceed 10,000, and possibly go much higher, a staggering figure that has become a simmering controversy in China as grieving parents say their children might have lived had the schools been better built.

The Chinese government has enjoyed broad public support for its handling of the earthquake, and in Sichuan on Saturday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations praised the government’s response.

But as parents at different schools begin to speak out, the question of whether official negligence, and possibly corruption, contributed to the student deaths could turn public opinion. The government has launched an investigation, but censors, wary of the public mood, are trying to suppress the issue in state-run media and online.

An examination of the collapse of Xinjian Primary School offers a disturbing picture of a calamity that might have been avoided. Many parents say they were told the school was unsafe. Xinjian was poorly built when it opened its doors in 1992, they say, and never got its share of government funds for reconstruction because of its low ranking in the local education bureaucracy and the low social status of its students.

A decade ago, a detached wing of the school was torn down and rebuilt because of safety concerns. But the main building remained unimproved. Engineers and earthquake experts who examined photographs of its wreckage concluded that the structure had many failings and one critical flaw: inadequate iron reinforcing rods running up the school’s vertical columns. One expert described the unstable concrete floor panels as “time bombs.”

Rest of article.