Word: beichuan
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Dates: during 2008-2008
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...local government tentatively plans to turn the remains of the city into a memorial park and build a new downtown 12 miles (20 km) to the south. Zhang now heads the Beichuan Department of Commerce, working to attract new businesses and industrial development. He hopes to bring in building-material companies that will develop earthquake-resistant products. Once Beichuan is rebuilt, a process that is estimated to take three years, Zhang hopes that the firms can then produce materials for seismic hazard zones elsewhere in China and abroad. The strain on Zhang and other local bureaucrats is severe. A quarter...
...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...