Word: beichuan
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...Father While Zhang works to rebuild Beichuan, Lu Shihua toils to figure out why the town collapsed. The single father lost his only child, daughter Lu Fang, when the Beichuan No. 1 Middle School crumbled. His wife had died 16 years earlier giving birth to her and Lu had resolved to raise the girl on his own. Friends and relatives, including his mother-in-law, offered to help the farmer find a new bride. "I turned them all down," he says. "I could not risk any possibility of my daughter being mistreated by a stepmother...
...with a similar determination that Lu fights for an answer to why the Beichuan No. 1 Middle School caved in, crushing his daughter. Lu had just had lunch with her in town an hour before the quake struck. He felt the earth move as he waited for a bus back to their mountain village. Rocks tumbled down from a nearby peak, but as soon as the tremors eased he ran to the school. "The five-story building was completely flattened and young, broken bodies were everywhere," he says. "There were parents here and there, crying and digging for their children...
...acquiesce faced official intimidation. Lu says police frequently questioned him and demanded that he cease his calls for justice. The only shop with a fax in his village has been told to not let him send documents. Nevertheless, Lu continues. In late October he received a statement from Beichuan officials denying any flaws in the building. Lu's not satisfied. "As long as I am breathing, I will seek an answer to my question: Why did the classroom building of Beichuan No. 1 Middle School completely collapse?" he says. "I just want to have a answer so all those...
...with reporting by Lin Yang / Beichuan...
...focal point of the room is a pencil drawing of the family he lost on May 12. An art student drew it from the ID cards of Zhang's wife Wu Shanshan, 33, and their daughter Zhang Duo, 6. All other photos were lost in the rubble of Beichuan, a mountain town where 15,000 perished. An 8-ft.-tall (2.5 m) fence now surrounds the town to keep people out, lest they be harmed by still frequent landslides. Former residents gather on the hills, lighting incense and firecrackers for their kin entombed in the collapsed buildings and mud below...