A mournful Children’s Day for China

Marking a sad International Children’s Day, angry parents mourned their young offspring Sunday and children across China opened their piggy banks and held yard sales to help survivors of last month’s devastating earthquake.

Some of the most enduring images from the magnitude 7.9 temblor that killed about 69,000 were the faces of China’s young. An estimated 7,000 children lost their lives and more than 16,000 were injured, most buried alive when their schools collapsed.

At Juyuan Middle School, where 900 children died, parents mourned the youngsters Sunday near the ruins and demanded that a “blood debt” be paid by people responsible for shoddy construction.

The central government has vowed to investigate building quality and set new standards for future schoolhouses.

With entire cities and villages wiped out and millions of survivors left homeless, many youngsters have had to resume classes in tents and temporary shelters. Some have been flown to neighboring provinces to attend school, and will have to live apart from their parents.

Bearing gifts of school bags and emotional support, President Hu Jintao over the weekend visited some young quake victims attending classes in a tent. “Today you have to study in the tent,” he told the students. “But I promise to help you build a new school. You will have a better classroom.”

Across the nation, Children’s Day took on new meaning as urban youngsters more used to asking their parents to take them for a meal at a Western fast-food restaurant learned the value of charity work.

Fundraising efforts included donations of pencils from children in the poorest parts of the country. Many schools organized mass letter-writing campaigns and made paper cranes symbolizing life and health to send to survivors.

“My dear little pals, we’re all members of one big family, even though we don’t know each other and are miles apart,” wrote one elementary school student from Shanghai, according to the official New China News Agency.

In quake-ravaged Sichuan province, two injured miners stranded for 19 days in the mountains after the May 12 quake were flown to safety after being spotted by paratroops.

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chingching.ni@latimes.com