Quake report blames bad buildings

CHINA: A CHINESE official assessing the destruction in Sichuan province caused by the May 12th earthquake has acknowledged that shoddy construction could be the reason so many schools collapsed, killing thousands of children.

"The structures were not necessarily reasonable and the materials were not necessarily strong enough. Both are possibilities," said Ma Zongjin, chairman of an official committee of experts assessing the quake damage.

The rush to build schools during China's economic boom might have led to substandard construction, Mr Ma said in what is the first admission by a senior public official that poor construction standards contributed to the disaster.

"There were possibly some construction problems because we have built schools relatively quickly in recent times," he said.

Lower-ranking engineers have already admitted that negligence was a factor in the widescale destruction of schools.

The number of children who died in the quake has never been released, but angry parents blame shoddy building - "tofu construction" - for their children's deaths.

The issue turned into political dynamite when parents brought their petitions to local government officials and courts, with the world's media watching. Riot police moved in, dragging away crying mothers, and officials offered cash in exchange for the parents' silence.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times