Chinese prosecutors have joined an official inquiry into 10 schools that collapsed in last month’s devastating earthquake, preparing possible charges and seeking to ease public anger and suspicions.
In Shifang, one of several areas of Sichuan Province ravaged by the May 12 quake, the procuratorate, or prosecutor, will seek to ensure that probes into the sensitive school issue are done fairly, the Legal Daily reported yesterday.
Parents across Sichuan have complained that a disproportionate number of children died in the quake, due to lax and corrupt building practices. The quake killed nearly 70,000 people, with many thousands more missing and likely dead, and at least 9,000 of them were schoolchildren.
Prosecutors will “enter early into investigations into project quality at 10 collapsed schools in the city to gain first-hand material of construction quality at the collapsed schools, launching preliminary inquiries and prepare for possible investigations into professional crimes,” the Legal Daily said.
Rules on reconstruction issued by Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) demand that local governments preserve documents and samples from schools and other toppled public buildings to assess how to improve standards, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Schools, hospitals and other public buildings should be rebuilt to higher quake-resistant standards than homes in the same area, the rules demand.
Meanwhile, a teenager suspected of hacking into the Web site of a seismological bureau and falsely warning of a massive earthquake has been caught by police, state media said yesterday.
The 19-year-old from Jiangsu Province, only identified by the surname Chen, admitted to illegally entering the Web site to show off his technical prowess, the Beijing News reported.
Chen allegedly hacked into the Web site of Guangxi Province’s seismological bureau at the end of last month, the report said, changing words on the home page to urge people to prepare for a “huge earthquake of magnitude 9 or more.”
Chen reportedly hacked into the Web site again on June 1 and 2 and deleted some data, the report said.
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