FUXIN, CHINA — The No. 2 Elementary School was the only building in the area that collapsed, killing perhaps as many as 129 children.
Nearby, a mud-and-brick house villagers said was built during the 1644-to-1911 Qing Dynasty remained intact. A three-story concrete and steel police building showed little damage, except for a few broken windows.
"Come over here. Look at this. That's a main beam," said Zhang Daolin, 37, a farmer whose son Zhang Wei, 12, died in the school collapse. "There's no steel inside. This was a three-story building. How could you hold it up?"
Like Zhang Daolin, grieving parents have repeatedly questioned the quality of school construction after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck Sichuan province May 12. So many primary students died in the town of Yingxiu that residents have talked about losing a generation.
Officials have not released the number of students killed, saying only that nearly 7,000 schoolrooms were destroyed. Last week, amid angry questions from the public, officials of the Construction and Education ministries announced an investigation into why so many schools had collapsed.
Parental rage at the weak construction of schools could become a major challenge for the government. These are not political dissidents or "troublemakers" the Communist Party can easily write off, but parents who have lost children at a time of more civil or "people- oriented" policies by the administration of President Hu Jintao.
Increasingly, sorrow has intensified the anger at the government.
At the pile of rubble that had been Fuxin No. 2 Elementary School, 150 parents, uncles and grandmothers Thursday sat in long rows clutching framed pictures of their dead children.
A long banner had children's names written in their parents' blood. Another banner directed at local and Communist Party officials read, "Leaders, you're safe, you can sleep comfortably. How about those poor children?"
At the far end of the rectangular courtyard that was once the school driveway, they had built a makeshift shrine. A tape recorder played Buddhist chants in a loop. Incense sticks bristled from three plastic dishpans beside burning red candles and more pictures of dead students placed on top of student desks.
Parents said the three-story school building, normally used by more than 300 students, had only one open door. Many students, they said, died in the crush to flee after a single, narrow stairway collapsed on them.
