Parents of schoolchildren say their complaints have been ignored and they are not allowed to mourn on disaster sites
An elderly Chinese woman cries as she arrives in Beichuan to prepare for the first anniversary of the May 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake where 87,000 people were left dead or missing and five million others homeless. (Photo: AFP)
China’s communist regime has come under strong criticism from survivors and parents of schoolchildren who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake for highlighting improvement in victims’ lives and focusing too little on the causes behind building collapses.
The uproar was triggered after Global Times, the mouthpiece newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), released a video on the 15th anniversary of the earthquake on May 12, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.
The video focused on the improvements in victims’ lives and the implementation of "disaster prevention" drawing sharp criticism in Sichuan province where the disaster killed about 90,000 people.
The dead included more than 5,300 children who were mostly in classrooms when the 7.9-magnitude quake hit. As many as 375,000 people were injured by the falling of debris and the collapse of buildings.
The quake flattened some four-fifths of the structures in the affected area.
Sang Jun, whose son died in the Fuxin No. 2 Elementary School in Sichuan's Mianzhu city stated that the investigation on the cause of the school collapse is incomplete.
"They have forgotten about the victims, and they still haven't investigated [why it happened]," Sang said.
The video showcased the lives of amputees who survived the quake and managed to achieve success in life.
"It's because so many people refused to give up, that we had so much motivation and energy [to rebuild our lives]," a voiceover said in the video, RFA reported.
Sang also highlighted that the families were not even allowed to visit the site of the erstwhile school building that collapsed on May 12, 2008.
"There is nowhere we're allowed to mourn them now -- we're not allowed to go to the scene [of the collapsed buildings],” Sang said.
Hundreds of dams, including two major ones, were found to have sustained damage with reports of villages and towns in the mountains being completely decimated by the tremors in 2008.
The losses were estimated to be at US$86 billion.
The parents allege that the school building collapse was due to substandard construction amid rampant corruption among officials and building contractors.
Many of the parents who called for government action on the matter through official channels reported that they were harassed and detained.
Zhou Xingrong, who has lodged more than 100 complaints with Beijing authorities on the matter stated that she was detained by unidentified men and was threatened to keep her mouth shut.
"When we got to Beijing ... a bunch of four or five burly men with Beijing and Hebei accents grabbed us and forced us into a vehicle, took our backpacks ... our mobile phones and ID cards," Zhou said recalling her ordeal in a recent trip in February.
"They wouldn't let me speak and threatened to tape up my mouth,” she further added stating that she “wasn't allowed to leave the house," on returning to her home in Dujiangyan.
Sang Jun and another parent pointed out that there has been no action from any of the top Chinese authorities despite promises of swift punishment for the culprits.
"Fifteen years and three premiers later... none of them has even mentioned the Sichuan earthquake, not one of them this whole time,” Sang said.
"I have also been to Beijing [to complain] but they tell us to deal with it back in our local area, so now we have to give up because trying to stand up for your rights is too hard," Sang further added.
Sang and other parents said they have somewhat given up their efforts to find the truth to avoid any backlash from the government on themselves and their surviving children.
"My other kid is very good at reading, and it will affect their ability to find a job in the future if I go against [the government]," Sang said further adding that “they [the government] always settle accounts, up to three generations later."
"I would like to stand up for my rights, but I'm afraid of the backlash,” Sang told RFA.
Lu Biyu, a mother who had lost her child to the earthquake pointed out that the government’s restrictions on public mourning of the earthquake victims were hindering the closure that the family members needed.
"I would feel better if I could sit with my baby for an hour or two in that place, especially after so many years of unsuccessful petitioning," Lu said.
"If it hadn't been a tofu building, then all of those children wouldn't have wrongfully died," Lu further added.
Tofu building was a term widely used by the Chinese public referring to the shoddy construction which was to blame for the catastrophic collapse of multiple school buildings in the affected areas.
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