InfoAnda - China quake school toll stirs grim findings and anger

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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam Search Search: China quake school toll stirs grim findings and anger Reuters - 2 hours 35 minutes ago By Chris Buckley ADVERTISEMENT BEIJING - China's effort to erase public anger over the many schools destroyed by a vast earthquake last year is facing a new campaign for answers and troubling findings that classrooms suffered far worse than government offices. Grieving for the 80,000 people killed across Sichuan province and neighbouring areas in southwest China will swell in the coming weeks, with the traditional Chinese day of family mourning on April 4 and the first anniversary of the quake on May 12. Many thousands of the dead were children crushed when classrooms shook apart moments after the 8.0-magnitude quake. Parents of dead children have blamed shoddy school buildings likened to soft "tofu dregs," and claimed corrupt officials or builders pocketed money meant to construct stronger classrooms. Asked about the dozens of schools that fell, sometimes while buildings next-door stayed upright, Wei Hong, a vice governor of Sichuan, said such collapses were inescapable in the general devastation and he was unsure how many children died. "The earthquake caused this disaster," Wei told reporters this month, saying he was backed by experts from Tsinghua University in Beijing and the China Academy of Building Research. But those experts cited by Wei concluded in reports recently coming to light that schools were disproportionately vulnerable. A strikingly higher percentage of classrooms were devastated compared to government offices or shops, according to a set of studies sponsored by Tsinghua and the Academy. One survey by engineers from Tsinghua and two other universities assessed 384 buildings across Sichuan. Of 44 school buildings counted, 57 percent were in that state of damage, as were 25 percent of shops and housing. Chinese experts have assigned blame on shoddy construction, inadequate standards for such a powerful quake and lax enforcement of them, and brittle walls of aged school buildings. "We must not treat the massive magnitude of the earthquake as an excuse and neglect considering the various technical and administrative problems exposed by quake damage," says one paper in the set of Chinese-language studies issued without fanfare late last year and seen by Reuters. A PROBLEM TOO BIG TO DISAPPEAR China's ruling Communist Party dislikes dwelling on such politically volatile memories, preferring to fix the nation's eyes on future plans and hopes. But a year after the quake, that official reticence confronts unhealed parental anger and the discomforting conclusions of the state's own scientists. Parents of hundreds of children who died when part of the Dongfang Middle School in Hanwang have continued to protest and petition to demand answers and arrests, several of them told Reuters. Inspectors had classified the building as dangerously dilapidated several years before. "The children died not in a natural disaster, but from the neglect and apathy of the responsible authorities," the parents wrote in a recent petition shown to Reuters. Ai Weiwei, a prominent artist and building designer, this month launched a volunteer campaign to pepper officials with phone calls about the schools and seek a full reckoning. He said he was infuriated by the answers from Wei, the Sichuan official. "I never expected that 300 days after the earthquake, the government is still evading like this. It's approach is always to turn big problems into small ones and make small ones disappear," he said from his studio on the outskirts of Beijing. "But this problem is too big. It won't just disappear." Several assessments by Chinese experts have backed parents' claims that some schools were weakened by brittle concrete lacking steel reinforcement and by a lack of pillars and beams. A book-length survey of the quake damage by seismic engineers from Tongji University in Shanghai showed pictures of buildings shaken into shards of crumbly concrete at four schools, while neighbouring buildings stood. "The common characteristic of these buildings is ... they did not incorporate beams and constructional columns needed for quake-resistance and the overall robustness of the buildings was quite poor," wrote the authors. GRAFT NOT JUST TO BLAME Other recent Chinese studies point to poorly mixed concrete slabs in collapsed schools and hospitals. The survey by Tsinghua and two other universities suggested 87 percent of government buildings could be re-opened after the quake, about half after reinforcement. Of the school buildings, 43 percent could be re-opened; the rest were beyond repair. This was not a rigorous random sample of buildings, said one the contributors, Zhao Zuozhou of Tsinghua. "But it was extensive and could be called quite representative," he added. Systematic studies of two quake-hit areas, Dujiangyan and Mianyang, have also concluded schools were much more vulnerable than apartments, shops or government offices, which were often newer buildings with more pillars and frame supports. But experts told Reuters the disproportionate damage to schools was not just the product of official greed and graft. "Some want to take this to extremes as a simple issue of corruption, but it wasn't that simple," said Feng Peng, a Tsinghua expert on quake-resistant building who has contributed to the recent studies. Older school buildings built when China was poorer tended to fall much more often, and the open spaces and big doorways needed for classrooms often were not adequately bolstered by extra protections, Feng said. Ai, the artist, said he and other volunteers would keep pressing for answers as the quake anniversary approaches. They already have the names of some 2,000 children killed, recording them on his website . "We want to have all their names, because only then can we remind everyone that these were people, not numbers," he said. Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Recommend this article Average (0 votes) Sign in to recommend this article » Most Recommended Stories » Related Articles: Asia Pacific Tibetan monks arrested in China riot: state mediaAFP - 1 hour 9 minutes ago After turmoil, Pakistan reinstates chief justiceAFP - 1 hour 20 minutes ago SKorea advance to baseball Classic finalAFP - 1 hour 29 minutes ago Province supplying Beijing water drying up: stateAFP - 1 hour 38 minutes ago Mugabe's wife beats assault charges in Hong KongAFP - 1 hour 46 minutes ago Most Popular – Asia Pacific Viewed Madoff loses bail appeal as victims' rage revealed Obama budget deficit could hit 1.845 trln dlrs Actress Natasha Richardson dies after ski accident Arrest warrant issued for Lindsay Lohan Opel boss hints at closing German plants View Complete List » Search: Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Southeast Asia Pte Ltd. 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