Inside China Today

No accountability for collapse of school buildings, parents say

On January 26, the Chinese New Year, SOH spoke to parents whose children were killed in their classrooms in last year’s May 12 Sichuan earthquake. The parents expressed concerns for the progress being made to safeguard their rights. They said that to date, no one has taken responsibility for the loss of student lives. The students, most of which were the only child in families, perished while in school buildings that crumpled like ‘bean curd dregs’. The parents had originally planned to appeal to higher authorities and take legal actions, but all appeals have been banned, the parents say they feel miserable.

Mrs Sha, whose child perished in the earthquake, is now doing odd jobs in other places. Her biggest wish is to build a public tomb for the students of Chuanbei High School that were lost in the earthquake. “So they may have a place to rest in peace,” she says.

Mrs Sha told SOH, the authorities told parents directly not to appeal to higher authorities. She adds lawyers do not dare to accept their cases either.

Mrs Chen, whose 18 year old daughter was crushed to death inside of Luoshui High School, said her daughter was very pretty and an excellent student, but perished in the twinkling of an eye. The government donated 90,000 yuan, roughly AUD$19,650, but she received no compensation.

Mrs Chen said she felt it was very unfair, saying, “We had brought up our daughter, and she died just like that. Do the authorities understand how miserable we feel?”

Another mother of a high school student victim also said that she still could not come to terms with the loss of her child. She said, “Everyone said it was very unfair. Our child just began his senior high school year and he was buried alive in the rubble. The government only gave me 60,000 yuan, (AUD$13,000) for the loss of his life.”

After the catastrophic earthquake, many parents of these underage victims asked the government to investigate the sub-standard school buildings known by parents as the “bean curd dregs projects”, in an attempt to receive justice for their lost children.

However, their appeals were suppressed by government authorities. The Deputy Governor of Sichuan Province Wei Hong lied at a press conference in November while in Beijing saying he was not aware of any surveillance and suppression of parents. His lies aroused much resentment from the parents of student victims. China holds a one-child policy and as such parents relied heavily on having a child to support them in their old-age. Now that has been taken away from thousands of parents who face an uncertain future.

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