昨天纽约时报的一篇文章指出，地震专家们对全球的学校建筑物的安全问题一直有关注，多次提出警告，不改进学校建筑物的质量，成千上万的学生的生命随时面临危险。今天早晨听美国国家公共广播电台(NPR)的记者在四川地震现场采访时，失去孩子的父母指出 Juyuan 学校的建筑物的质量有问题。
今天的纽约时报刊登有一篇关于Juyuan 学校家长的采访文章，那些失去孩子的父母揭露当地的政府对温家宝总理隐瞒灾情，阻止学生家长在地震后的两天中去营救自己的孩子，这真是让人不可忍受。学校应是孩子们学习的乐园，而不是开追悼会的地方。昨天，在网上看到，一位父亲在后悔把孩子送到学校上学遭此厄运，如让孩子去打工恐就躲过这一劫了。如部分在NPR的网页留言的美国听众指出的，由于晚婚晚育与独生子女的政策，在这些失去子女的父母中，不知道有多少人恐怕再也不能有自己的孩子了！！
纽约时报：Tiny bodies in a Morgue, and Grief in China
在都江堰，有几所学校在地震中倒塌了，当时学生们正在上课。本周二， 温家宝总理去了其中的两所学校， 包括Xinjian 小学。当地的官员告诉温总理有20 名学生死亡。据新华社报导，当温家宝见到有两名孩子被救出来时，他对埋在废墟中的学生喊话，“我是温家宝爷爷。坚持住，孩子们。你们肯定会得救的。”但周三下午与周四早晨在距都江堰1小时路的太平间接受采访的愤怒的父母们指出，当地的政府官员对温家宝总理隐瞒灾情，当时估计有400多名学生遇难。几位学生家长对缓慢的救援措施和建筑物的质量质疑。学生家长非常愤怒，地方官员在地震后的两天中阻止他们寻找自己的孩子，只是在家长们成立了一个委员会举行抗议后，他们才被允许见到了自己孩子的尸体。
“温家宝总理来之前，学校里到处都是学生尸体。”一位坐在太平间外面守著她的8 岁女儿尸体的母亲说。“我和小孩她父亲从地震起就在学校外面等著。我们恳求政府，‘如果她死了，我要看她的尸体，如果她还活著，我要看见她’ ”。 她的丈夫，一个很瘦的男人，告诉记者，“我们说的是真话，请把真相告诉外边。”地震发生在周一的下午2 点28 分，许多父母很快赶到学校。小学有600名学生，从7 岁 到12 岁。当家长们赶到时， 大部分的建筑物已倒塌了。家长们开始拼命地用手试图移开砖瓦，水泥块。39 岁的Chen Li 来认领她的6 年纪儿子的遗体，说，“我们请求学校领导帮助我们。当兵的在哪里？派他们来帮助我们。” 据家长们讲，附近大学的学生在4 点左右赶来帮助寻找被埋的学生。当地的官员和学校的领导检查了现场后就离开了。过了两个小时，许多武警才到达，然后要求家长们离开，因为现场危险。学生家长们等在校门外，看不见营救的过程。
Chen Li 说她儿子的尸体在地震当天就被发现，放在运动场上，在雨中没有任何覆盖。周三，两辆卡车在温家宝总理到来之前把尸体运走。“我想至少有50具尸体。我问他们是不是在运尸体。” 政府官员谝她说是在运帐篷。
不过这好像激怒了星期三火葬场送别孩子们的父母，在采访中，他们指责当地领导向温家宝总理撒谎，隐瞒了死亡小学生的数目，按照这些家长的估计，新建小学超过400个小学生死亡。有几个家长责备政府的救援反应缓慢，并怀疑学校建筑的结构不够安全。他们同样严重质疑政府在震后两天内不允许他们到学校废墟中寻找自己的孩子，直到学生家长联合投诉之后，才让他们接近了自己孩子的尸体。
“总理来之前，整个学校都充满了孩子们的尸体”，一位与丈夫站在自己八岁孩子尸体旁边的母亲说，“她爸爸跟我从地震之后就在学校旁边，请求政府“生要见人，死要见尸”。她的丈夫，一个对着蜡烛黄色灯光的单薄男人对着记者说：“我们告诉你这个事实，请把真相曝光”。
这场火葬被安排在离都江堰一个小时车程的乡下，停车场在早上1点半就已经停满了车，孩子们的父母和其他亲属围坐在孩子们的尸体旁，有些人点燃了冥币以送孩子上路。其中一个屋子填满了25个幼小的尸体，“更多的在这里”，一个男人把记者领到了后门另外一个地方，一大群孩子们的尸体，以及排成两行的送行家人，“都是学生，看”，他指着一个尸体上穿着的学校校服和旁边的书包说。
火葬场的学生家长们为记者介绍了震后的情况：家长们在震后第一时间赶到新建小学，这个建筑物倒塌最严重的学校，试图从废墟中找到自己的亲生孩子，当地领导和学校管理者检查了一下就离开了，2个小时之后，消防警察来参与救灾，而孩子的家长们就被劝阻离开现场。挖掘出来孩子们的尸体就裸露在学校操场上，星期三在温家宝探访该学校之前，孩子们的尸体被两辆大卡车给拉到了这个火葬场。
有几个家长要求调查都江堰学校建筑的问题，他们称这座城市有六所学校建筑倒塌，而政府的建筑却巍然耸立。而那个八岁女孩的家长李平拿出手机，很自豪的让记者看了看他手机中保存的一个星期前拍摄女儿的照片，说：“我的女儿很乖，她喜欢画画，我们现在给她穿上她最喜欢的衣服上路”。他说当他星期三在火葬场找到女儿的尸体时，她幼小的身体还是温的，他不敢想象女儿在临时之前，在废墟中挣扎了多久。
“我的女儿”，他静静地对着女儿说：“平常都是你自己穿衣服，这次我得给你穿了。”
家长与亲属聚集在 Juyuan 的太平间。地震中遇难的学生的尸体在这里火化。遇难学生的尸体 在Xinjian小学的校园里停放了两天，家长们等到周三才被允许确认自己的孩子。Photo: Shiho Fukada for The New York Times
一个家庭在太平间的停车场上哀悼失去的孩子。
一具在太平间的停放的孩子遗体。
周三下午，家长们在太平间停放的尸体中寻找自己的孩子。
一对失去孩子的夫妇。
失去孩子的家庭在太平间的停车场上燃香哀悼失去的孩子。
在北川，救援的士兵们抬著一个获救的受伤儿童。Photo: Guangquan/Reuters
一个生存者被从废墟中救出来。 Photo: Guangquan/Reuters
压在废墟下等待救援的孩子。
救援者从四川西南部的 Yinghua 的废墟中抬出一具尸体。Photo: Agence France-Presse
-- Getty Images
救援者在北川倒塌的建筑物中寻找幸存者。
震后的北川县Yingxiu镇。Photo: Chen Kai/Xinhua, via Reuters
震中汶川， 城市原有人口118,000. Photo: Chen Kai/Xinhua, via Reuters
附录：纽约时报原文
Tiny Bodies in a Morgue, and Grief in China
JUYUAN, China — The bodies are everywhere. Some are zipped inside white vinyl bags and strewn on the floor. Others have been covered in a favorite blanket or dressed in new clothes. There are so many bodies that undertakers want to cremate them in groups. They are all children.
Parents at a makeshift morgue on Wednesday in Juyuan, China, held the body of their child, killed in Monday’s earthquake. More Photos »
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Back Story With Jim Yardley (mp3) “Our grief is incomparable,” said Li Ping, 39, eyes rimmed red, as he and his wife slowly, carefully pulled a pair of pink pajamas over the bruised, naked body of their 8-year-old daughter, Ke. “We got married late, and had a child late. She is our only child.”
The earthquake that struck Sichuan Province on Monday has so far claimed more than 19,000 lives across China, and thousands more people remain missing or trapped beneath rubble. But the awful scene at this local morgue is a sad reminder that too many of the dead are children in a country where most families are allowed to have only one.
These children symbolized the earthquake’s seemingly indiscriminate cruelty. But the cruelty, in the eyes of their parents, was also man-made.
Several schools in nearby Dujiangyan collapsed while classes were under way. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited two of them, including Xinjian Primary School, where parents say officials told him the death toll was 20 pupils.
“I am Grandpa Wen Jiabao,” the prime minister said as he watched two children being pulled from the rubble, according to Xinhua, the official state news agency. “Hold on, kids! You’ll definitely be rescued.”
But enraged parents interviewed at the morgue on Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday morning say local officials lied to the prime minister to hide the true toll at Xinjian, which they estimate at more than 400 dead children. Several parents blamed local officials for a slow initial rescue response and questioned the structural safety of the school building. They were also furious that officials forbade them to search for their children for two days and then allowed access to the bodies only after the parents formed an ad hoc committee to complain.
“Before Wen Jiabao came, the whole school was filled with children’s bodies,” said one mother who sat outdoors at the morgue with her husband in the early morning darkness beside the covered body of their 8-year-old daughter. “Her father and I had stood outside the school since the earthquake. We pleaded with the government: ‘If she is dead, I want to see the body. If she is alive, I want to see her.’ ”
Her husband, a thin man, leaned forward into the yellow light of two candles. “We’re telling you the truth,” he said. “Get the truth out.”
The morgue is an hour outside Dujiangyan on an isolated rural road, yet the parking lot was filled at 1:50 a.m. on Thursday. Parents and other family members clustered around the bodies of their children. Some burned fake money to bring their lost child good fortune in the afterlife. In one room, 25 small bodies were scattered on the floor. Some children had already been taken away; an empty white body bag lay near a sneaker and a filthy pair of boy’s trousers. Some families had placed flowers or incense inside empty water bottles as makeshift memorials.
“There are more in there,” said a man, pointing to a rear door. He walked outside to a walkway and paused. Scores of bodies, covered with sheets, were lined in two long rows on the concrete floor. Others were placed in an adjacent room. Parents sobbed or sat silently beside bodies.
“They are all students,” said the man in the blue shirt. “Look,” he said pointing to a red and white jacket folded beside one body. “That is the school uniform.” He pointed to a Mickey Mouse backpack. “There is a book bag.”
The two rows of bodies came to an open door that led to the large steel furnaces used for cremation. In China, the dead are almost always cremated fairly soon after death. Usually, there is enough time for funeral ceremonies and rituals, but parents said that officials were worried about cremating so many bodies before they started to decompose. So some parents have been asked if their children can be cremated with dead friends to save time.
Parents say they were only allowed to begin identifying their children on Wednesday. The bodies had remained inside the gated grounds of Xinjian Primary School for two days until officials began transporting them to the morgue on Wednesday.
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<!-- Inject Script Filtered --> <!-- Inject Script Filtered --> Back Story With Jim Yardley (mp3) The earthquake struck at 2:28 p.m. on Monday, and many parents rushed to the school. Xinjian had about 600 pupils, ages from roughly 7 to 12. When parents arrived most of the building had collapsed. They frantically pulled away bricks and chunks of concrete with their bare hands.
“We pleaded with the administrators to help us,” said one mother, Chen Li, 39, who came to the morgue on Wednesday to identify her son, a sixth grader. “We yelled, ‘Where are the soldiers? Send them to help us!’ ”
Parents say neighbors and students from a nearby college arrived by 4 p.m. to help with the digging. Local officials and school administrators also came but then left after inspecting the site. Two more hours passed before a large group of paramilitary police officers arrived and told the parents to leave because the area was too dangerous. Parents were relocated outside the school gate, unable to watch as the officers began digging.
Ms. Chen said her son, Zhang Yuanxin, was discovered the same day as the earthquake but then left uncovered in the rain with other bodies on the playground. She said two trucks arrived Wednesday and carried away bodies shortly before Mr. Wen arrived for his inspection.
“I think there were 50 bodies in two trucks that were carried away,” Ms. Chen said. “I asked those people, ‘Are you taking the bodies away?’ ”
But she said local officials lied to her and said they were only taking away tents.
Parents say they became so angry over the situation at the school by Tuesday that they formed the committee and complained to local officials. Officials in Dujiangyan could not be reached for comment, but parents say the officials relented on Wednesday by moving the children’s bodies to the morgue and providing shuttle buses for people waiting outside the school.
At the morgue on Wednesday, parents walked through rooms lined with bodies on the floor, lifting sheets in the unwanted search to identify a lost child. Cai Changrong, 37, held an urn containing the ashes of his cremated 9-year-old daughter. His wife, Hu Xiu, could not stop wailing.
“We didn’t find any bruises or injuries on her body,” said Ms. Hu, the mother. “But she lost all her nails. She was trying to scratch her way out. I think my daughter suffocated to death.”
Several parents wanted an investigation into the construction quality of school buildings in Dujiangyan. They say six schoolhouses collapsed in the city, even as other government buildings remain standing. One man said officials built two additional stories on the Xinjian school even though it had failed a safety inspection two years ago — allegations that could not be verified.
Mr. Li, the father dressing his dead daughter, also said he believed that the school was poorly built. He arrived at the school minutes after the quake and spent the next four hours searching for his daughter. His forearms were bruised and his fingernails were split and bloodied from digging.
He proudly handed over his cellphone and showed a picture of his daughter, Ke, taken last week. But Thursday morning, he and his wife were preparing for her cremation. They struggled to slip her into the pink pajamas and then dressed her in a gray sweatshirt and pants. Her mother placed a white silk mourning cloth under her clotted black hair.
Mr. Li said he lost his job in 1997 and had been living on a meager welfare payment. He said the school was filled with children from poor families. “My daughter was a very good student,” he said. “She was a quiet girl, and she liked to paint. We’re putting her in these clothes because she loved them.”
He said he was angry and sad. He said his daughter’s body was still warm when he found her at the morgue on Wednesday. He wondered how long she lived beneath the rubble. And then he turned away, leaning down slightly, and whispered in her ear.
“My little daughter,” he said quietly. “You used to dress yourself. Now I have to do it for you.”
