This story was reported by Jim Yardley, Jake Hooker and Andrew C. Revkin, and was written by Mr. Yardley.
DUJIANGYAN, China — The earthquake’s destruction of Xinjian Primary School was swift and complete. Hundreds of children were crushed as the floors collapsed in a deluge of falling bricks and concrete. Days later, as curiosity seekers came with video cameras and as parents came to grieve, the four-story school was no more than rubble.
In contrast, none of the nearby buildings were badly damaged. A separate kindergarten less than 20 feet away survived with barely a crack. An adjacent 10-story hotel stood largely undisturbed. And another local primary school, Beijie, catering to children of the elite, was in such good condition that local officials were using it as a refugee center.
“This is not a natural disaster,” said Ren Yongchang, whose 9-year-old son died inside the destroyed school. His hands were covered in plaster dust as he stood beside the rubble, shouting and weeping as he grabbed the exposed steel rebar of a broken concrete column. “This is not good steel. It doesn’t meet standards. They stole our children.”
There is no official figure on how many children died at Xinjian Primary School, nor on how many died at scores of other schools that collapsed in the powerful May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province. But the number of student deaths seems likely to exceed 10,000, and possibly go much higher, a staggering figure that has become a simmering controversy in China as grieving parents say their children might have lived had the schools been better built.
The Chinese government has enjoyed broad public support for its handling of the earthquake, and in Sichuan on Saturday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations praised the government’s response.
But as parents at different schools begin to speak out, the question of whether official negligence, and possibly corruption, contributed to the student deaths could turn public opinion. The government has launched an investigation, but censors, wary of the public mood, are trying to suppress the issue in state-run media and online.
An examination of the collapse of Xinjian Primary School offers a disturbing picture of a calamity that might have been avoided. Many parents say they were told the school was unsafe. Xinjian was poorly built when it opened its doors in 1992, they say, and never got its share of government funds for reconstruction because of its low ranking in the local education bureaucracy and the low social status of its students.
A decade ago, a detached wing of the school was torn down and rebuilt because of safety concerns. But the main building remained unimproved. Engineers and earthquake experts who examined photographs of its wreckage concluded that the structure had many failings and one critical flaw: inadequate iron reinforcing rods running up the school’s vertical columns. One expert described the unstable concrete floor panels as “time bombs.”
Xinjian also was ill-equipped for a crisis. An ambulance and other rescue vehicles that responded after the earthquake could not fit through the entrance into the school’s courtyard. A bulldozer finally dug up beneath the front gate to create enough overhead clearance. Parents say they believe several hundred of the school’s 660 pupils died.
“It is impossible to describe,” said a nurse standing on the rubble of the Xinjian site. “There is death everywhere.”
Schools are vulnerable to earthquakes, especially in developing nations where less attention is paid to building codes. The quake in Sichuan Province has already claimed 60,560 lives, and some of the flattened schools, especially those buried under landslides, could not have stood under any circumstances. The government has not provided a public list of those schools, but one early estimate concluded that more than 7,000 “schoolrooms” were destroyed.
China has national building codes intended to ensure that major structures withstand earthquakes. The government also has made upgrading or replacing substandard schools a priority as part of a broader effort to improve and expand education. Yet codes are spottily enforced. In March 2006, Sichuan Province issued a notice that local governments must inspect schools because too many remained unsafe, according to one official Web site.
译文:
废墟中的悲情——中国被追问：学校为什么会倒塌？（节选）
本文由Jim Yardley、Jake Hooker和Andrew C. Revkin报道，由Yardley先生撰文。
中国，都江堰——新建小学在瞬间被地震彻底摧毁。楼层坍塌，跌落的砖块和混凝土块像洪水般冲向数以百计的孩子。几天后，当手持摄像机的媒体和悲痛欲绝的家长来到现场时，四层楼的学校已化为一片废墟。
不同的是，周围的建筑物却鲜有严重毁坏。不到20英尺远的一家幼儿园只出现了一条裂缝。附近的一座十层楼的酒店纹丝未动。另外一所当地的重点小学——北佳小学安然无恙，被当地政府用作为地震庇护所。
在此次地震中痛失九岁爱子的该校家长任先生说：“这不是一场天灾。”他站在碎石旁，手上沾满泥灰，从一根断裂的水泥条上扯下一段裸露的钢筋时，他哭喊道：“这根本不是好的钢材，根本不符合标准，他们（活生生）地偷走了我们的孩子。”
没有官方数据说明有多少孩子在新建小学中遇难，在5月12日四川地震中倒坍的几十所学校中总共有多少孩子死亡也无从得知。但很可能超过一万，也许还更高。这个令人惊愕的数字引发的争议已经持续升温：家长们说，如果学校建地好一点，他们的孩子或许就不会死亡。
中国政府在这次抗震行动中获得了广泛的民众支持。联合国秘书长潘基文周六赴四川考察灾情时，赞扬了中国政府（对地震的及时）回应。
但当各个学校的家长们大声叩问“政府的疏忽，甚至极可能是腐败是否是导致学生死亡的原因之一”时，公众的看法可能会有转变。政府已经展开调查，但调查员对公众的舆论导向十分警觉，正试图在国家电视频道和网上平息此事。
对新建小学坍塌事故的调查向人们展示了一幅悲惨惊心的灾后画面，而这场灾难本可以避免。很多家长都说他们曾被告知学校很不安全，1992年建校时施工粗糙，并且因为在当地教育系统中排名靠后，学生主要来自于社会底层，学校从没得到政府拨款，改建校舍。
十年前，学校一幢独立的楼房倒塌后出于安全考虑得以重建。但主教学楼却未得到修缮。工程师和地震专家仔细察看残骸图片后得出结论，（学校的）的结构上存在诸多纰漏和一个致命的缺陷：用于支撑学校的立柱中的钢筋棍严重不足。一位专家将摇摇欲坠的水泥层面形容为“定时炸弹”。
新建小学的应急设施同样也很差。震后闻讯赶来的救护车和其他救援车辆无法进入学校大门，最后只能动用挖掘机在校门下方挖出足够空当。家长们估计学校总共660名学生中有几百人都已丧生。
“无法用语言来形容，”，一位站在新建小学废墟中的护士说：“到处都是尸体。”
学校，尤其是在建筑法规不被人重视的发展中国家，容易遭受地震的破坏。四川省发生的地震已夺去60,560个生命。一些倒塌的校舍，特别是埋在塌方中的校舍脆弱地不堪一击。政府还未对外公布这些学校名单，但据先前的预计，超过7000所教室已被毁坏。
中国制定了国家建筑标准，旨在确保（建筑物的）主结构抵受住地震的侵袭。政府同时也将修缮和取缔不合格的校舍作为进一步促进和发展教育的首要工作。然而，规章的实施很不力。一个官方网站记录，2006年3月由于诸多学校存在安全隐患，四川政府曾发布一项通知，严令地方政府视察各个学校。