China quake parents unbowed in pressing complaints

JUYUAN, China-Anguished Chinese parents said on Wednesday they will press ahead with complaints against officials they blame for schools that toppled in a devastating earthquake, a day after police sought to silence one protest.The quake centered in southwest China's Sichuan province killed 69,122 people with 17,991 more missing and likely dead, according to the latest official figures.Many parents of the 9,000 or more children killed blame flimsy schools and the officials they claim spurned building safety rules.In Dujiangyan, a small city 50 km (30 miles) from the Sichuan province capital of Chengdu, some parents vowed to keep up their complaints a day after police prevented about 150 of them from trying to lodge a lawsuit over a collapsed middle school."The government has said it will address our complaints, but the officials are too corrupt to actually do anything," said Zhao Deqin, a mother whose 15-year-old twin daughters, Yajia and Yaqi, attended the Juyuan Middle School and died in the collapse."We certainly want to sue the school and whoever was responsible," said Zhang Xianqing, whose 15-year-old boy Zhang Rui also perished in the school, in a town near Dujiangyan."Our lawyer didn't turn up yesterday but we'll keep on trying until we're taken seriously."Officials have said 278 children at the school died, but parents say 400 or more may have perished and pointed out that apartments nearby stood upright while the school building fell. With China's "one-child" population controls, many parents lost their only offspring.

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