Grief-stricken dozens march to demand justice for their dead children The parents whose children died when Fuxin No2 Primary School collapsed in the Sichuan quake mourned their loss yesterday amid the building's ruins and marched to the government office to demand justice. In the heat, the walk from Fuxin to Mianzhu town took longer than usual. But the parents of about 50 children - each tightly clutching photos of their lost children - insisted on making the 90-minute journey, saying they wanted to do something for their lost ones on this day. 'It's Children's Day. We always take our children out on this day, since they do not have to go to school,' said Xiong Ying, whose daughter Liu Xinyue would have turned 11 on May 23. 'We want to show our children what the town looks like, and also the beautiful tents we heard of, which they would like very much.' They also wanted an official explanation for what they believed was a tragedy tied to 'tofu projects' - namely shoddy construction and corruption. They were expecting some information yesterday, but were told they would have to wait at least until June 20. But the parents abandoned the march when another group of emotional parents from Jiulong Primary School joined them. The Fuxin parents did not want to appear to be troublemakers and they believed Jiulong's collapse was a different case. 'We do not trust the local government. We hope the central government can intervene and help us,' said single father Wang Xingxi, a construction worker. 'I regret not having spent enough time with her,' he said on the verge of crying for his daughter. 'I only seek justice for her.' In Fuxin, only the three-storey school building collapsed. All buildings nearby remained intact. After the quake, parents rushed to the school and used their hands trying to dig out their children. They were devastated to find 127 bodies. Amid the debris, they also found that no steel reinforcements held the walls to the ground, some steel rods were thinner than fingers, and the concrete was mixed with wood and brick pieces. On May 25, about 100 angry parents marched to the Deyang city government offices to find out what caused the collapse of the school apart from the quake. Jiang Guohua , the party secretary of Mianzhu, a city under Deyang who administers Fuxin, knelt four times begging the parents not to continue their march. Since then experts have been collecting samples of the building's foundation and debris. Shortly after dawn yesterday, parents began gathering at the school ruins, placing the photos of their lost children in a tent pitched on the debris. Wreaths and banners that read 'Our children died unjustly' and 'Our children did not die in an earthquake but shoddy construction' lined the road to the school. A banner 'June 1st in Heaven' was hung across the tent. Some teachers also returned to mourn, but they were criticised by the parents, who claimed that they had done little to save their children. Media reports said that only one of the teachers died in the quake. The township chief and vice-chiefs paid their respects in the morning, but could not give parents any answers. Deyang's planning department vice-chief Deng Yu also confirmed that the original blueprint was a photocopy of another school in the area; more bad news the parents already knew from a newspaper report. Xiong Yonghao, father of grade five student Xiong Yin, said the government had yet to provide safety assessment reports and the original approval certificate of the school building when construction was completed in 1989. The parents held a quiet sit-in at the entrance to the government's temporary control centre yesterday, refusing to go inside for talks.
