Only quarter of quake victims identified

ONLY a little more than a quarter of the 70,000 people who died in a massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province in May have been identified, a Chinese official said yesterday, as authorities rushed to prepare stricken areas for the coming winter.

Wei Hong, vice-governor of Sichuan, said 19,065 bodies had been identified since the May 12 quake razed huge swaths of the lush, mountainous south-west province.

Another 18,000 people are still missing.

The government still has not given a separate toll for children who were crushed when their shoddily built schools collapsed, but has said that about 7,000 classrooms were destroyed.

Their deaths have become a sensitive political issue, with parents staging protests demanding investigations by the government.

Many of the parents also say they have been subjected to intimidation and financial inducements to silence them.

But Wei said he had not heard of such situations.