China said yesterday that last year’s massive Sichuan earthquake left 5,335 students dead or missing, releasing its first official tally days before the sensitive anniversary of the disaster.
The announcement came as authorities in the southwestern province accused foreign reporters of inciting survivors of the May 12 disaster to demonstrate, amid reports that journalists have been harassed, detained or beaten.
The 8.0-magnitude earthquake left nearly 87,000 people dead or missing, injured 375,000 and left more than 5 million homeless, the government has said.
PHOTO: AFP
DELAYED TALLY
Tu Wentao (涂文濤), head of the Sichuan education department, attributed the year-long delay in releasing the tally of dead or missing students to the need to compile figures from various government agencies.
“These numbers were reached through legal methods. We have wide agreement on these numbers,” Tu told a press conference in the provincial capital Chengdu, speaking as part of government efforts to mark Tuesday’s anniversary.
The quake left another 546 students disabled, the data indicated, which did not include any deaths in surrounding provinces.
The number of children killed in the quake is highly sensitive because many bereaved parents say school buildings were shoddily constructed, causing them to collapse when the quake struck while adjacent structures stood firm.
State media has said previously that 14,000 schools suffered damage in the quake — half of them collapsed entirely — while early estimates of the numbers of students and teachers killed were put at around 9,000.
The schools issue is perhaps the most sensitive aspect of the disaster for the government, whose propaganda machine had otherwise seized on the quake as an example of the country overcoming adversity under Chinese Communist Party leadership.
Angry parents of dead children staged a number of protests following the quake, alleging that corruption resulted in shoddy construction.
CLAMPDOWN
Rights groups have heavily criticized Beijing for a subsequent clampdown on the subject, which has included sealing off school ruins, barring media coverage of the subject and jailing activists investigating the issue.
Yesterday, a Chinese official accused Western reporters of encouraging survivors to speak out against the government.
“A very few journalists are not going to the disaster area to report, but are inciting the crowds, asking people to organize,” Hou Xiongfei (侯雄飛), vice head of Sichuan’s provincial propaganda department, told reporters in Chengdu.
“We do not welcome these kinds of people and ... will handle them in accordance with the law,” he said, without giving specific examples.
JOURNALISTS HARASSED
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China on Wednesday urged reporters to be cautious in quake-hit areas, saying it had received reports of three cases in which foreign journalists were shoved, punched or otherwise harassed.
“Given the violence of the encounters and an apparent increasing frequency of reports, it seems the situation is becoming more volatile and we advise extra caution when visiting these areas,” the group said in a statement.
The government has required foreign journalists to register with local authorities if they want to report on the anniversary.
Human Rights Watch released a statement on Wednesday calling for China to open up about the quake, compensate victims’ relatives and allow parents to file lawsuits.
“Parents of student quake victims, who are trying to understand how and why their children died, deserve answers and compassion, not threats and abuse,” Sophie Richardson, the group’s Asia advocacy director, said in the statement.
“Persecuting quake victims and their relatives adds cruel insult to already grievous injury,” Richardson said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS