Tangled Blame in Quake Deaths
Chinese Parents Facing Uphill Battle for Redress Over Collapsed Schools

By Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 2, 2008

DUJIANGYAN, China, June 1 -- Tears of grief and anger mixed with smoke from ritual fires lighted on the ruins of Xinjian Primary School on Sunday, as hundreds of parents commemorated the deaths of their children and pleaded for the government to punish those responsible for the building's collapse in last month's earthquake.

But for the parents, placing blame is a complex matter. Most of the dozens of schools that collapsed in the quake, killing an estimated 9,000 children, were built more than a decade ago, with multiple layers of government and private companies involved in their construction. And although government officials have announced investigations, they have emphasized the need to look for lessons learned, not the pursuit of wrongdoers.

Nearly three weeks after the tragedy, Xinjian parents say they are unaware of any official investigating team having visited the site to examine the rubble, still piled in a courtyard surrounded by other buildings, every one of which remains standing.

"Some of the parents have taken samples, but we know they don't have validity in legal proceedings," said a parent who identified himself only by his surname, Yan. "But the site itself is the best evidence. All that collapsed is the school classrooms."

Lawyers said they doubted there would be many criminal convictions, despite the emotions surrounding child deaths, especially in a country where families are generally limited to having only one.

"The legal proceeding could be a very long period without an end," said Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer in Beijing. "To affix both criminal and civil compensation responsibilities is very complicated."

Xinjian was like many schools built in rural China in the late 1980s and 1990s, when local officials rushed to fulfill a central government mandate to provide nine years of compulsory education. There were not nearly enough buildings to house classrooms, and there wasn't nearly enough money to build them.

"On the one hand, the task to meet the [educational] standard was urgent," said Li Yunseng, the retired director of the Dujiangyan education bureau finance department. "On the other hand, we were short of funds all the time. So the school buildings sometimes do not meet the standard of quality control."

Local authorities scrambled to raise construction funds beyond the initial $4,000 to $7,500 per school building provided by the city government in Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, about 35 miles from Dujiangyan. Sichuan still owes banks and developers nearly $590 million from that construction boom, according to an article in Southern Weekend, a Chinese newspaper known for its independent reports.

Parents and lawyers also allege that kickbacks were widespread, further limiting the amount of money available to build the schools according to safety standards that had been bolstered after a devastating earthquake in 1976 in the northeastern city of Tangshan killed at least 240,000.

Often added to the financial pressures was a lack of expertise in current earthquake-resistant designs. "Usually, the township government would give the contract to a local construction team," Li said.

Melvyn Green, a California-based engineering expert, said constructing an earthquake-resistant building might raise total costs between 2 and 10 percent. "But finding the engineering know-how when you get out of the major cities" could be difficult, Green said. "The quality control of construction is also a big issue. Are you getting in construction what the engineers had in mind?"

A web of relationships between government officials and building contractors often obscured oversight responsibilities and thus who would be liable for shoddy buildings. A parent familiar with the construction of Xinjian Primary School said it was built in 1992 by a partnership involving the local education bureau, a hotel company and a government construction committee.

Emotions at the two-hour memorial service, however, were anything but complex. "Momma has come back. Why didn't you wait for me?" sobbed Chen Sumei, as she squatted before a pile of debris. Perched on top were two portraits of her daughter, smiling in a tracksuit and flashing a victory sign.

Family members, most holding portraits of their children, wore white T-shirts that read, "Severely punish the corrupted elements in the 'tofu dregs' buildings," a Chinese colloquialism that refers to the spongy byproduct when making bean curd.

They lined up in rows according to the child's class. One by one, each row walked to the front of those gathered and bowed three times to the rubble, before filing into the center of what used to be a four-story school. One woman clawed the concrete and pounded bricks with her fists until she collapsed, heaving tears and burying her face in the rubble. Some were silent as they lighted candles and incense and burned paper money, a ritual to aid a child in the afterlife.

Luo Ningdan, 7, led the first row into the rubble. She had escaped the cataclysm by running out of the building with 30 students from her second-grade class. But her best friend was among the 22 class members who did not make it out. "I'm here to say to her, 'good journey,' " Luo said.

Li Ping, 40, wept as he recalled seeing the body of his 9-year-old daughter three days after the earthquake. "There were no bruises, so I think she died from suffocation," he said.

A banner hung over the spot where the bodies had been placed when they were pulled from the rubble in the days after the May 12 quake. It read: "Take whole situation into consideration. Cause no trouble for the government. But won't stop fight until we get justice."

Late last month, grieving parents at a collapsed school in Mianzhu city staged a raucous protest march, causing the local Communist Party secretary to drop to his knees in the middle of the street and plead for them to stop.

One of the parents who helped organize the Xinjian memorial service said participants were refused a permit to march and that parents' speeches at the service were sent to local officials for approval.

Tears streamed down Yang Zhong Xue's face after he found his third-grade daughter's exercise book, decorated with her artwork. "My child died in vain because of a bad-quality building," he cried. "We want the government to severely punish those responsible."

But the government is still a long way from acknowledging quality problems. "It is still under investigation," said Yang Hong Bo, director of the Sichuan province construction department. "We haven't reached any conclusion yet."

Chen Baosheng, a professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and a member of the Ministry of Construction's rescue expert team, examined debris at Juyuan Middle School -- not far from Xinjian -- which collapsed with 900 students inside, most of whom were crushed to death. According to Chen's measurements, the steel rods inside the pillars of the collapsed school were far below the standard, according to Southern Weekend.

Zhi Shuping, deputy director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said at a news conference in Beijing last week that "severe punishment" awaited anyone found responsible for a school's collapse.

But finding responsible parties does not appear to be the first priority.

Chen Hong Gui, deputy chief secretary of the Sichuan provincial government, was named in a Chinese media report as leading one of two teams investigating building quality. But when contacted Sunday, Chen declined to comment except to say that he wanted to clarify that the team's purpose was not to investigate building quality but "to lay the foundation for rebuilding those schools."

Yan, the Xinjian parent, said he and other parents "believe the government will give us justice."

"But if not, we'll fight for justice in our own ways, which will be reasonable and legal," Yan said. "What we are demanding now is justice to calm down the aftershocks in the hearts of parents."

Researchers Liu Songjie and Liu Liu contributed to this report.