多维社记者陈湘编译报导/地震袭击后，至今仍有成千上万的人失踪或被困瓦砾。但一个最可怕的场景是在当地的停尸场，它在悲伤地提醒人们，这些死亡的儿童，都是在实行一胎化政策的中国出生的，而中国的大多数家庭都只能生一个孩子。
《国际先驱论坛报》近日刊登记者Jim Yardley在四川灾区都江堰市的一个停尸和火葬场的采访报导“在中国一个停尸场上的父母悲愤（Grief and anger for parents at a Chinese morgue）”，披露了在大地震中失去了子女的一些父母的悲痛、对当地官员灾后行动的不满。
报导说，到处都是尸体。有些是装在白色的有拉链的塑料袋里，放在地上，另外一些则已经用死者最喜欢的毛毯裹着或是换上了新衣服。尸体太多了，多到必须分成一组一组地一起去烧。而这些死者还都是孩童。
“我们的悲痛无与伦比，”39岁的李平（Li Ping）说。他的眼睛已经哭红了，说这话的时候，他正在和他的妻子慢慢地、小心翼翼地将一件粉红色睡衣套到他们8岁女儿，李柯（Li Ke）的赤裸的尸体上。“我们是晚婚晚育，她是我们唯一的孩子”。
这些儿童象征着地震不分青红皂白的残酷性。但在他们的父母的眼中，所谓残酷，也包括了人为的因素。
《国际先驱论坛报》的报导说，在都江堰附近的几所学校都倒塌了，而当时学生正在教室里上课。
5月13日，鳁嘉宝总理心情激动地视察了其中的两所学校，其中的一所叫新建小学。家长们说，当时地方官员告诉鳁嘉宝，学生总的死亡人数是20名。
“我是鳁嘉宝爷爷，”鳁嘉宝在看望两个从瓦砾中救出的孩子时说。据新华社报导，鳁嘉宝对孩子们说：“挺住，孩子们！你们一定会得救的。”
“鳁嘉宝总理来到之前，整个学校都放满了孩子的尸体”一位母亲说，在凌晨的黑暗中，她和丈夫坐在停尸间门外，旁边是一具盖着的尸体，那是他们8岁的女儿。她说：“地震后，我和她爸爸都站在学校外面。我们恳求政府，‘孩子在里面，我们生要见人，死要见尸。’”
她的丈夫，是一名瘦瘦的男子，在两根蜡烛的黄色灯光中，看着记者说：“我们说的都是真话。你要把真相讲出去。”
《国际先驱论坛报》的报导说，这个停尸和火葬场位于离都江堰市一小时的车程外的地方，通过一条孤零零的农村道路进去。而15日凌晨1点50分的时候，这里已经停满了车子。
父母和其他家庭成员都聚集在他们的子女的尸体旁。一些人在烧纸钱，以使他们的孩子来世富贵。在一间屋子里，25具孩子的尸体散布在地板上。还有些孩子的尸体已经被家长带走了，一个空了的白色尸体袋放在地上，旁边放着的，是一只运动鞋和一条沾满泥土的男孩子的长裤。
一些家长将玻璃瓶装上花或是插上一些香，临时用来进行祭拜。
“那里还有更多的（尸体），”一名穿蓝色恤衫的男子指着后门说。他走到外面，那是临时停满盖着的尸体的地方。
这些尸体用床单盖着，被排成两列，摆在水泥地上。还有一些被安置在相邻的房间里。家长们席地而坐，在默默地抽泣。
“他们都是学生，”该名穿蓝衬衫的男子说。
“你看，”他指着一具尸体旁叠放起来的红白色相间的外衣说：“这是他们的校服。”还指着一个米老鼠画像的背包说，“这儿还有一个书包。”
两排的尸体通向一个开着的大门，大门里是大型的尸体焚化炉。在中国，死亡后几乎都是进行火化，通常都在死亡后不久。通常，也有充分的时间来举办葬礼和 其他追悼仪式，但家长表示，负责太平间的地方官员很担心，这么多的尸体，怕来不及火化，会开始腐烂。因此，他们希望有些家长同意让他们的死亡的孩子与死者 的朋友一起火化，以节省时间。
家长们说，直到星期三（14日）才开始让他们去认尸，这时候，尸体已经在锁着门的新建小学里放了两天了，然后星期三才运到了停尸间去。
《国际先驱论坛报》的报导还说，地震发生的时间是周一（12日）的下午2时28分，当时许多家长立即赶到了学校。新建小学共有大约600名学生，年龄 从大约7岁至12岁。当他们的父母抵达学校时，看到的是大部分的建筑都倒塌了，孩子们都埋在了里面。父母们开始疯狂地用他们的双手来趴土和试图推开大块的 混凝土。
“我们请学校方面来帮助我们，”一位39岁、叫陈莉（Chen Li）的母亲说。陈莉是14日下午来到太平间，来认自己的、上六年级的儿子。她说，当时“我们大声喊：解放军在哪里？把他们派来帮帮我们吧！”
家长们说，附近的居民和附近高校的大学生是大约下午四时赶到的，他们想帮助把小学生挖出来。后来，当地官员和学校领导也来了。但是他们在看了现场后， 都相继离开了。过了两个多小时后，才有大批的消防部队到达，并劝告家长们都离开，因为这个地区还是在危险中。父母们都被劝离到校门口外面，他们也看不到这 些救援人员怎么挖掘。
陈莉说，她儿子张远新（Zhang Yuanxin）的尸体，地震当天就被挖出来了，然后就和其他被挖出来的尸体一起，一直放在学校操场的露天被雨淋。她说，周三早上，两辆大卡车开来，把尸体运走了。不久，鳁嘉宝就来到了，就是因为他要来视察才这么做的。
“我想，大约有50具尸体被两辆卡车运走，”陈莉说，“我问那些人，“你们在运尸体走？”但是当地官员骗她说，他们只是将帐篷运走。
父母们说，当时他们对当局的做法都很气愤。于是在学校周二，他们自发地组成的一个团体，对当地官员提意见。但家长说，官员relented周三移动儿童的身体前往停尸间，并提供穿梭巴士的人外等候学校。
星期三（14日）下午，家长们在停尸间排队走过尸体，揭开尸体上的布来认尸。
记者见到37岁的蔡长荣（Cai Changrong）时，他正捧着9岁的女儿的骨灰盒，他的妻子，胡修（Hu Xiu），在旁边痛哭不止。
“她的尸体上，我们没有看到有任何擦痕或伤痕，”母亲胡修说，“但是她手上所有的指甲都没有了，她是想趴出一条生路出来呀。我相信我女儿是给闷死的。”
《国际先驱论坛报》的报导说，有几位家长还提出，要对位于都江堰市的这所校舍的施工质量进行调查。他们说，在这个城市，6所学校的房子都倒塌了，但是 政府的楼房却仍然挺立。一名男子说，新建小学的教学楼两年前就安全检查不合格，但是，官员们还是在上面又加建了两层。不过记者并没有核实这个指控。
前面记者提到的那位姓李的父亲，正在为他死去的女儿换衣服。他也表示，他认为学校的建筑是不善。他是地震后几分钟就赶到学校的，然后用了四个小时来搜寻他的女儿。这位父亲的前臂有瘀伤，指甲都裂开了，手指上都是血，他说都是挖松软的混凝土砾时挖的。
他自豪地将他的手机上的女儿照片给记者看。他女儿李柯的照片面带微笑，他说是上周刚照的。但是到这个礼拜四（15日），父母就在准备给她火葬了。他们 费劲地将粉红色睡衣逃到女童身上，然后还给她穿上灰色绒衣和裤子。她的母亲在她的起了结的黑头发下放置了一块白色丝绸的丧布。
李先生说，他1997年就下岗了，靠一点微薄的社会福利金维持家计。他说，新建小学里都是穷人家的孩子。“我的女儿是很好的学生，”他边说边整理着孩子的裤子。“她平时安安静静的，喜欢画画。我们给她的穿的这些衣服，都是她平时喜欢穿的。”
他说他感到气愤和悲痛。他说，周三她在太平间发现他的女儿时，女儿的尸体还有余温。他真不敢想象女儿在瓦砾下挣扎了多久。说完这话，他扭头，弯下身子，嘴巴凑近女儿的耳朵边轻声说：
“我的小女儿，”他轻声轻气地说，“你平时总是自己穿衣服，现在，必须要我来给你穿了。”
A family grieving in the parking lot of the morgue. (Shiho Fukada for The New York Times)
Grief and anger for parents at a Chinese morgue
By Jim Yardley
Published: May 15, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/15/asia/children.phpJUYUAN, China: The bodies are everywhere. Some are zipped inside white vinyl bags and strewn on the floor. Others have been covered in a favorite blanket or dressed in new clothes. There are so many bodies that undertakers want to cremate them in groups. They were all children.
"Our grief is incomparable," said Li Ping, 39, eyes rimmed red, as he and his wife slowly, carefully pulled a pair of pink pajamas over the bruised, naked body of their 8-year-old daughter, Ke. "We got married late, and had a child late. She is our only child."
The earthquake that struck Sichuan Province on Monday is so far known to have claimed more than 19,500 lives across China, and thousands more people remain missing or trapped beneath rubble. But the awful scene at this local morgue is a sad reminder that too many of the dead are children in a country where most families can have only one.
These children symbolized the earthquake's seemingly indiscriminate cruelty. But the cruelty, in the eyes of their parents, was also man-made.
Several schools in nearby Dujiangyan collapsed while classes were under way. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made emotional visits to two of them, including Xinjian Primary School, where parents say officials told him the death toll was 20 pupils.
"I am Grandpa Wen Jiabao," the prime minister said on his visit as he watched two children being pulled from the rubble, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. "Hold on, kids! You'll definitely be rescued."
But enraged parents interviewed at the morgue Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning say local officials lied to the prime minister to hide the true toll at Xinjian, which they estimate at more than 400 dead children. Several parents blamed local officials for a slow initial rescue response and questioned the structural safety of the school building. They also were furious that officials forbade them to search for their children for two days and then allowed access to the bodies only after the parents formed an ad hoc committee to complain.
"Before Wen Jiabao came, the whole school was filled with children's bodies," said one mother, who sat outdoors at the morgue with her husband in the early morning darkness beside the covered body of their 8-year-old daughter. "Her father and I had stood outside the school since the earthquake. We pleaded with the government, 'If she is dead, I want to see the body. If she is alive, I want to see her."'
Her husband, a thin man, leaned forward into the yellow light of two candles. "We're telling you the truth," he said. "Get the truth out."
The morgue is located an hour's drive outside Dujiangyan on an isolated rural road, yet the parking lot was filled at 1:50 a.m. Thursday.
Parents and other family members clustered around the bodies of their children. Some burned fake money to bring their lost child good fortune in the afterlife. In one room, 25 small bodies were scattered on the floor. Some children had already been taken away; an empty, white body bag lay near a sneaker and a filthy pair of boy's trousers.
Some families had placed flowers or sticks of incense inside empty water bottles as makeshift memorials.
"There are more in there," said a man in a blue shirt, pointing to a rear door. He walked outside to a covered walkway and paused.
Scores of bodies, covered with sheets, were lined in two long rows on the concrete floor. Others were placed in an adjacent room. Parents sobbed or sat silently beside bodies.
"They are all students," said the man in the blue shirt.
"Look," he said pointing to a red-and-white jacket folded beside one body. "That is the school uniform." He pointed to a Mickey Mouse backpack. "There is a book bag."
The two rows of bodies ended at an open door that led to the large steel furnaces used for cremation. In China, the dead are almost always cremated, usually fairly soon after death. Usually, there is enough time for funeral ceremonies and rituals, but parents said that officials at the morgue were worried about cremating so many bodies before they started to decompose. So some parents have been asked if their children could be cremated with dead friends to save time.
Parents say they were only allowed to begin identifying their children Wednesday. The bodies had remained inside the gated grounds of Xinjian Primary School for two days until officials began transporting them to the morgue Wednesday.
The earthquake struck at 2:28 p.m. Monday, and many parents rushed immediately to the school. Xinjian had about 600 pupils, ages from roughly 7 to 12, but when parents arrived most of the building had collapsed. They started frantically pulling away bricks and chunks of concrete with their bare hands.
"We pleaded with the administrators to help us," said one mother, Chen Li, 39, who came to the morgue Wednesday afternoon to identify her son, a sixth grader. "We yelled, 'Where are the soldiers? Send them to help us!"'
Parents say neighbors and students from a nearby college arrived by 4 p.m. to help with the digging. Local officials and school administrators also came, but then left after inspecting the site. Two more hours passed before a large group of paramilitary police officers arrived and told the parents to leave because the area was too dangerous. Parents were relocated outside the school gate, unable to watch as the officers began digging.
Chen said the body of her son, Zhang Yuanxin, was discovered the day of the earthquake but was then left uncovered in the rain with other bodies on the school playground. She said two large trucks arrived early Wednesday morning and carried away bodies shortly before Wen arrived for his inspection.
"I think there were 50 bodies in two trucks that were carried away," Chen said. "I asked those people, 'Are you taking the bodies away?"'
But she said local officials lied to her and said they were only taking away tents.
Parents said they became so angry over the situation at the school by Tuesday that they formed the committee and complained to local officials. Officials in Dujiangyan could not be reached for comment, but parents say the officials relented Wednesday by moving the children's bodies to the morgue and providing shuttle buses for people waiting outside the school.
Inside the morgue Wednesday afternoon, parents walked through rooms lined with bodies on the floor, lifting sheets in the unwanted search to identify a lost child. Cai Changrong, 37, held an urn containing the ashes of his cremated 9-year-old daughter. His wife, Hu Xiu, could not stop wailing.
"We didn't find any bruises or injuries on her body," said Hu, the mother. "But she lost all her nails. She was trying to scratch her way out. I think my daughter suffocated to death."
Several parents wanted an investigation into the construction quality of school buildings in Dujiangyan. They say six schoolhouses collapsed in the city, even as other government buildings remained standing. One man said officials built two additional stories on the Xinjian school even though it had failed a safety inspection two years ago - allegations that could not be verified.
Li, the father dressing his dead daughter, also said he believed the school was poorly built. He arrived at the school minutes after the quake and spent the next four hours searching for his daughter. His forearms were bruised and his fingernails were split and bloodied from digging through what he described as soft concrete.
He proudly handed over his cellphone and showed a picture of his smiling daughter, Ke, taken only last week. But early Thursday morning, he and his wife were slowly preparing for her cremation. They struggled to slip the girl into the pink pajamas and then dressed her in a gray sweatshirt and pants. Her mother placed a white, silk mourning cloth under her clotted black hair.
Li said he lost his job in 1997 and had been living on a meager welfare payment. He said the Xinjian school was filled with children from poor families. "My daughter was a very good student," he said, fixing her pants. "She was a quiet girl and she liked to paint. We're putting her in these clothes because she loved them."
He said he was angry and sad. He said his daughter's body was still warm when he found her at the morgue Wednesday. He wondered how long she had lived beneath the rubble. And then he turned away, leaning down slightly, and whispered in her ear.
"My little daughter," he said quietly. "You used to dress yourself. Now I have to do it for you."
