| Earthquake devastation | Music | 00:00 |
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| MCDONELL: On the 12th of May, the Province of Sichuan was shaken by a powerful earthquake. It flattened factories, hospitals and housing blocks. Whole towns were wiped out. It was the middle of the afternoon on a school day and the news spread quickly that many schools had been destroyed. | 00:17 |
| Photo. Zhao Xue | Music | 00:51 |
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| Zhao Xiaofeng: My daughter’s name is Zhao Xue. She was 16 years old. | 00:55 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng | I looked around and saw that buildings hadn’t collapsed here so we thought the school would be fine too. | 01:03 |
| Photo. Zhao Bin | Mother: My son was excellent. He’s a very good student. That’s why I sent him to a school with a good reputation. | 01:11 |
| Parents | Someone came over when she saw me sitting here and said “Juyuan school has collapsed, why haven’t you gone there?” So I ran towards to the school. | 01:26 |
| Juyuan Junior High School immediately after earthquake |
| 01:36 |
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| MCDONELL: We arrived at the Juyuan Junior High School 12 hours after it collapsed, killing hundreds of 15 and 16 year olds. | 01:41 |
| High School one month later | A month later, we returned to find out why the school fell down when neighbouring buildings didn’t, and to hear from the parents and survivors. | 01:56 |
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| Girl 1: My classmates and I lay on our stomachs on the ground. Then the building collapsed with us buried inside. | 02:07 |
| Girl 1 | It was pitch dark inside. I was scared. I could hear my classmates beneath me, crying for help, and crying for their mums and dads. I was scared too. | 02:16 |
| Rubble of high school | Girl 2: We ran to the door of the classroom but the stairwell was full of our classmates. | 02:38 |
| Two Girls | Those who didn’t make it to the stairs went down as the floor collapsed. I happened to land in a hole with space around me. | 02:43 |
| Parents at disaster site | MCDONELL: The parents who arrived first knew they had to move fast. | 02:55 |
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| Yang Jianhong : During the first hours after the building collapse, | 03:01 |
| Parents | no fire fighters, school heads nor authorities organised any rescue work. Only the parents were there pulling out children. | 03:05 |
| Parents amidst rubble looking for children | Mother: I was helping others to search in the rubble. | 03:20 |
| Mother | Finally I saw a student buried under a beam. My son was tall. I could recognise my own child’s body shape straight away. Then I recognised his trousers and leather belt. I saw his curly hair. | 03:29 |
| Parents at table. Mother with head on arms | It is horrible. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk about it any more. | 03:51 |
| Rescue workers at school | MCDONELL: When rescue workers did make it through, bad weather made the situation even worse. | 04:09 |
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| Father: I climbed up to the collapsed building and found myself hopeless. | 04:17 |
| Father | A lot of people arrived with us so we all gave them a hand digging | 04:24 |
| Girl 1 | Girl 1: At last my classmate found me and asked other people to rescue me. I was saved by my parents and my classmates. | 04:31 |
| Parents in rain waiting for news of their children | MCDONELL: Outside the school, parents waited in the rain to see if their child’s body had been found. | 04:44 |
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| Zhao Xiaofeng: At 7pm we dug out our daughter from the rubble. | 04:52 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng | Her body was stiff when we dug her out. Her body was cold. We realised that there was no hope. | 04:56 |
| Parents waiting for children to be found | MCDONELL: As the dead children were found, their families sheltered them under tarps, or large umbrellas. | 05:09 |
| Fireworks for the dead | Then, with every new body, fireworks were lit to send the children of Juyuan off to the afterlife. | 05:26 |
| Quake victims in camp | Music | 05:38 |
| McDonell at school site. Police check | MCDONELL: Four weeks after the earthquake, we walked in, as we had before, to see the collapsed school site. This time we were not welcome. The Juyuan school site had become what the Chinese call min gan – or “sensitive”. | 06:13 |
| Police stop McDonell | Somebody in power doesn’t want reporters – and especially foreign ones – asking whether this school collapsed because it was badly built. Yet that’s exactly what the parents want to know -- and that makes the authorities nervous. | 06:34 |
| Mother | Mother: I think it’s the fault of the school leaders and the construction company. I don’t know what connections these two sides have but if a building has problems, lots of people must be involved. | 06:52 |
| Construction sites | Who built the school? Did they use cheap materials and pocket the profits? Why was the school the only major building in Juyuan to collapse? | 07:10 |
| McDonell with policeman | These were some of our questions – but before we could get a chance to start asking, we were whisked off to the local police headquarters to make written statements about why we weren’t carrying our passports. | 07:21 |
| Destroyed buildings | Music | 07:39 |
| Photo of daughter | Zhao Xiaofeng : She was one of the good students in her class. | 08:04 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng | She ranked within the 20 best students. | 08:08 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng with pigs | Zhao Xiaofeng is a pig farmer. Because Juyuan is in a rural area many of the parents work on the land. He thought his daughter’s junior high school would deliver her a better life. | 08:25 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng | Zhao Xiaofeng: Her hope was to enter a good high school, which was our hope too, so she could have a bright future. We are farmers, we know nothing. We had put all our expectations on our child. That’s it. | 08:45 |
| McDonell with Zhao Xiaofeng in home looking at photos | MCDONELL: Zhao says he’s in no doubt that his daughter died because the school was poorly built. | 09:07 |
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| Zhao Xiaofeng: We believe it is the fault of the school heads. They didn’t supervise the quality of the school’s construction. | 09:15 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng | They chose the construction company and should have checked the building’s progress. | 09:22 |
| Photos – courthouse/protest | Music | 09:31 |
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| MCDONELL: Zhao joined 283 other families to try and sue the Principal. At the local court house the judge refused to accept their case for lack of evidence. Police dragged more than 100 parents away when they tried to protest. | 09:36 |
| Yang Jianhong and his wife Zhao Bin with McDonell in courtyard | But the parents have not been silenced. Yang Jianhong and his wife Zhao Bin told us the government’s response has not been good enough. | 09:59 |
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| Father: We are not satisfied. We can give you a few more telephone numbers of parents. You can go back to Juyuan. No parents are satisfied with this. | 10:10 |
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| MCDONELL: Yang returned from his welding job in another province when he heard the bad news. Zhao is still distraught after finding her only child, her 16 year old son, Yangxin, in the rubble. | 10:25 |
| Mother shows picture of son | Mother: All I feel is hatred. I hate myself for sending him to that school. I hate the construction company who has made innocent children lose their lives. I’ve lost everything. My son was my hope. Now I’ve lost my hope. Nothing helps now. All I have now is hatred. I’ve lost all my strength. | 10:40 |
| Juyuan school with police | MCDONELL: The parents might want some answers but the local Government either doesn’t know or won’t say why this school or others might’ve fallen down. There is apparently an investigation on, but everything about it is secret. | 11:15 |
| Government press conference | We decided to try for some answers ourselves. | 11:35 |
| McDonell asks questions | MCDONELL: My question is to Director Zhao Ying. According to the Sichuan Government, what is the reason for the collapse of the Juyuan high school? Is it because the building was of poor quality? |
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| Zhao Ying responds | Zhao Ying: We will arrange another press conference later to answer this particular question raised by our foreign journalist friend. Next question, please. | 11:57 |
| McDonell question | MCDONELL: You just said there would be another press conference concerning the topic. I would like to know when it will be held. And what measures will you be taking to investigate the collapse of the Juyuan school? | 12:15 |
| Zhao Ying responds | Zhao Ying: I have already answered that question. We will find another occasion to hold a press conference about the school buildings. Any other questions? | 12:34 |
| McDonell walks with camera woman | Music | 12:54 |
| Police stop McDonell | MCDONELL: It didn’t matter how many times we tried to approach the school, to see if investigators were there, or if any research was being carried out. We kept running into our same friends, who were on hand to stop us filming. | 13:03 |
| Piece to camera. Super: | MCDONELL: While China promised unparalleled press freedom in the run up to the Olympics the reality is, this is what we’re up against. Every time an issue becomes sensitive. There are road blocks and we’re prevented from entering. We’re now… | 13:19 |
| Police stop filming and take McDonell to police station | Music | 13:36 |
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| MCDONELL: The longer we were there the tighter the security became – especially on the day marking one month since the earthquake. Authorities prevented parents from holding a memorial service that day. They also stopped foreign reporters from entering the town. We’d snuck in before daylight, so it was back into a police car and off to police headquarters again. We were questioned again about who we were, how we got there and what story we doing. We were told by the police not to bother returning, because the entire area was now completely off limits to foreign reporters. | 13:39 |
| Zhao Xiaofeng | MCDONELL: What’s your plan now? Zhao Xiaofeng: What plan do we have now? We just want to protect the parents’ legal rights. We don’t have any other plan. We have trusts in the government and the Communist Party to give us a proper answer. | 14:25 |
| Yang Jianhong and his wife Zhao Bin with McDonell in courtyard |
| 14:46 |
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| MCDONELL: Some parents have been offered compensation of less than $2000. Zhao Bin says she doesn’t want the money, but for the people who built the school to be punished. | 14:49 |
| Zhao Bin | Zhao Bin: To tell truth, I’ve lost the will to live. Without him I don’t know how I can go on. My head is empty. | 15:00 |
| Lighting Kongming lanterns | Music | 15:15 |
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| MCDONELL: These people are remarkably resilient, even in the depths of despair. We watched locals, who are living in tents now, lighting Kongming lanterns. They are a traditional way of telling your loved ones who are far away, that you are safe. | 15:30 |
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| Music | 15:51 |
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| Liu Li: Our lives are empty and lonely. I feel like there’s a part missing. | 15:57 |
| Liu Li | I’ve lost the most precious thing in my life, more precious than anything else. I wish the earthquake would’ve taken anything else of mine, but left my child with me. | 16:02 |
| Liu Li lights lantern | MCDONELL: Liu Li, lost her 15 year old daughter. As she released her lantern, she started praying, and her husband and others joined in. | 16:14 |
| Group pray | Liu Li: I hope that she has a happy life in heaven. I hope she’s still outstanding in heaven - and she becomes the brightest star in the sky, so I can see her every day from here. | 16:25 |
| Lantern | Music | 16:40 |
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| MCDONELL: The sky over Juyuan now has hundreds more bright-burning stars than it used to have. | 16:45 |
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| Music | 16:52 |
| Credits | Reporter: Stephen McDonell Producer: Xin Jiang Camera: Rob Hill Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen | 17:01 |