Trapped students had little time to escape quake
As orange-suited rescue teams searched the wreckage for survivors, worried and sometimes wailing parents watched amid a cold, steady drizzle Tuesday.
Troops lined two deep kept the emotional family members away from the teams working with cranes and hand tools.
"You tell us to wait. We can't wait anymore. We must have some information," a woman pleaded with soldiers at the edge of what was left of the school in Juyuan.
The grief unleashed by Monday's magnitude-7.9 earthquake was etched across this farming and manufacturing town perched in the foothills of the Tibetan highlands.
All but a handful of the more than 900 upperclassmen were believed trapped under the slabs of cement, bricks, tile and twisted cables. Only one survivor has been found: a girl pulled free by a rescue team. Her identity has not been released.
Juyuan was a magnet school attracting the region's top students, ranging from seventh grade to ninth grade, many of them from isolated communities who boarded in an adjacent dormitory.
Unless more survivors are found, the quake will have wiped out the school's entire graduating class and about half its student population.
Engineers said the school's walls and support columns gave way almost instantly.
"These buildings just weren't made for that powerful of a quake. Some don't even meet the basic specifications," said Dai Jun, a structural engineer and concrete specialist in Chengdu who was surveying damage in the area.
Authorities have not said whether they'll investigate the collapse. Neighboring and adjoining school buildings suffered relatively little damage.
The rescue crews arrived within hours. By 3 a.m. Tuesday — more than 12 hours after the earthquake — 60 bodies had been recovered; several dozen more were pulled out later in the day.
The victims were carried to the edge of the muddy school yard, placed under a tarp canopy and wrapped in sheets and blankets, some splattered with blood.
Families staged impromptu religious rites. A few lit incense and candles, while others set off fireworks to ward off evil spirits. Most, though, appeared numb with shock and sat quietly next to the bodies.
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