China's earthquake: All those children killed

Now forgotten, certainly in the West, The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the devastation of the earthquake in China last year - especially the number of children killed :

"Chinese officials said more than 5000 students were killed in the Sichuan earthquake, breaking an official silence that has lasted almost one year.

The official student death toll from the earthquake on May 12 last year had been kept under wraps as authorities battled to contain a public backlash about shoddy school buildings.

The "tofu" schools became an emblem of government corruption as well as China's glaring inequalities. In some towns, schools for ordinary people collapsed while government buildings and schools for the children of officials remained unscathed.

Tu Wentao, head of Sichuan's Education Department, told journalists in Chengdu yesterday that 5335 students were dead or missing following the Sichuan earthquake. The quake also left another 546 students disabled, he said."

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