Wails of grief a year later
Posted: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 9:43 AM
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Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
HANWANG, Sichuan Province – It came without warning. Its unexpectedness as stunning as the raw emotion it so clearly expressed.
We were wrapping up our interview with Huang Lianhe, a father who lost his only child, 18-year-old Dengfeng, in last year's deadly quake that killed more than 69,000 others in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi.
He was showing us photos of his son as his own elderly parents circled quietly in the background.
The grandmother, a diminutive but sturdy woman, approached with a friendly expression. She placed her hand on my wrist, her palm soft despite decades of hard farm work, and began to murmur something.
I leaned in expectantly but quickly leapt back when a sad, long wail erupted.
"My grandson didn't die in a natural disaster! He died from the collapsed school – it was bad construction!" cried the 68-year-old Wang Zhenxiu.
All the family’s hopes
Her grief was so overpowering because just moments before she had been smiling and full of equanimity.
"He was about to sit for the university entrance exam," said her husband, 73-year-old Huang Biyuan, tears also welling in his eyes.
Like many others living in a country with a strict birth control policy, the family was grieving the loss of its sole heir. All the family’s hopes and dreams were invested in young Dengfeng, who would have been expected to care for his parents in their old age. He also was expected to be the first one in the family to go to university.
"He died from bad construction!" shouted Wang again, to no one in particular, yet at the same time at everyone.
The student’s father, Lianhe, stood to the side, mute, his eyes lowered to the ground.
His son had been a senior at Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, Sichuan Province. At least 200 other students were killed in the same school when the floors of the building caved in after the quake struck.
Parents of the victims early on demanded an investigation into whether the school was poorly constructed since many of the surrounding buildings remained standing. But instead of getting answers, they were silenced.
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| Adrienne Mong |
| Students from Beichuan Middle School attend a groundbreaking for their new school. |
A crackdown on parents
As with many parents, Lianhe has been under the watchful eye of local authorities. Attempts to meet journalists have been thwarted, and he said he has been followed whenever he has tried to see the parents of other child victims.
Lianhe explained that the officials argued that they needed "‘to maintain social order,’ as if we were starting a riot."
No one is allowed near the Dongqi school, which is now surrounded by brick walls topped off with shards of glass. And someone is always watching the gate, Lianhe said.
"The dorm building, which was still standing, has been torn down, and the collapsed classrooms are now covered over with debris," he said.
If the city of Hanwang was going to be kept standing as a memorial site, wreckage and all, Lianhe argued, why couldn't the remains of the school be kept as they were, too?
"It seems like they are trying to cover some crime, these officials," he said, his eyes narrowing.
But the father’s anger seems less fiery than it did last June when we first met him. There's more resignation, his voice sounds almost flat.
"The government considers this [issue] over. There's not much I can do," he said. "I'm over 40 now, too old to have another child. I don't know who will look after us."
A year after the quake, parents like Lianhe and grandmothers like Wang still have yet to get any answers – or any satisfactory resolution – from the local and central governments.
No wonder Wang’s tears burst into full force at the slightest mention of Dengfeng.
"The school owes my grandson justice," she said.
Related links:
China marks anniversary of devastating quake
World Blog: Flowers for the dead...and the living
Officials blunt activism set off by China quake
VIDEO: One year after quake: return to Beichuan
VIDEO: Artist continues quest for real quake toll
