BEIJING — Jiang Xujun felt the stab of his daughter's death all over again Friday when Chinese officials acknowledged for the first time that 19,000 students perished in May's deadly earthquake -- and then immediately backed off the estimate.
Jiang used his bare hands to dig the body of his 7-year-old daughter, Jiang Yao, from the rubble of her primary school. Since then, he has fought the government for compensation for the death and assistance in finding a new home.
The months have brought only misery. On Friday, Chinese officials added insult to Jiang's injury.
At a news conference on preparations for the winter in the quake zone, Wei Hong, executive vice governor of Sichuan province, gave the student death toll as 19,065, nearly a quarter of those killed. The figure was immediately quoted in stories by Chinese state-run and foreign news services.
Soon, however, an officer from the provincial propaganda office said an official translation at the news conference misconstrued Wei's remarks. He said the figure was the total number of earthquake victims who have been identified.
For many, including the angry parents of children who died when schools collapsed, the about-face spoke volumes of how Chinese officials deal with sensitive revelations: a moment of candor followed by a contradictory reversal.
A New China News Agency report of the news conference included Wei's original remarks, but a second story on the state-run site said his estimate referred to a detailed list of identified dead and not specifically students.
A veteran reporter for the China Youth Daily said there still was confusion on whether Wei inadvertently released the real student death toll number or was misquoted.
"I don't know whether it's true or not," he said. "I have been to several earthquake zones, and I only know the death toll there, but for an overall death toll, I really have no way to know."
For months after the magnitude 7.9 quake, officials declined to offer a precise toll of the number of students who had died. The topic has raised the ire of many Sichuan residents who watched schools collapse while nearby buildings suffered little damage.
"We don't trust the local government, they are too deceptive," said Jiang, a 37-year-old former home renovator. "School buildings are of shoddy construction. I am afraid the real number of dead students is more than 19,000."
