Grief Turns to Fury For Quake Survivors

As rescue efforts continue in western China, the mood among survivors of the earthquake has transformed from grief to fury: at the military, at builders, and above all at the government. In Dujiangyan, where several hundreds pupils died when a school collapsed, the Guardian reports that residents tried to push through military police and begged Western media to circulate their stories.

A massive rescue effort is now underway across Sichuan province, but survivors had begun to blame corrupt officials and rapacious contractors for the devastation. "They have money for prostitutes and second wives but they don't have money for our children," said one woman who lost her daughter. "This is not a natural disaster—this is done by humans." (More earthquake stories.)