Disaster and intrigue in China after the cultural revolution

On 12 May 2008, a devastating earthquake ripped apart Wenchuan county in Sichuan province, southwest China. Military and civilian rescuers arrived swiftly at the scene, saving countless lives. Although more than 68,000 people died, the number of fatalities could have been much higher.

An indication of how much higher had been made clear on 28 July 1976, when the nondescript mining city of Tangshan in northern China was hit by an earthquake which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale and killed some 250,000 people. At the time, many Chinese regarded the disaster as a portent of great change. Already that year two major Chinese leaders, premier Zhou Enlai and senior marshal Zhu De, had died. And just two months later, on 9 September, Mao Zedong, the man who had led China for more than quarter of a century, himself went to meet his maker – Marx, of course.

James Palmer's book weaves together these two narratives of natural disaster and elite political intrigue to provide a lucid account of one of the eeriest moments in modern Chinese history. Palmer takes us inside Zhongnanhai, the party complex formerly inhabited by the emperors in the heart of Beijing, and brings to life the personalities jockeying for power as Mao lay dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. On the left, the cultural revolution group radicals were led by Mao's wife Jiang Qing, who once declared "Sex is engaging in the first rounds, but what really sustains attention in the long run is power."

The Chinese (and western) prejudice against powerful women has tended to give Jiang a uniquely demonic quality, and Palmer does well to remind readers of the role of figures such as the venal and overpromoted Wang Hongwen who whiled away the time during Mao's deathwatch by riding his motorbike and watching imported Hong Kong movies (although not simultaneously). On the right, the dying Zhou, stricken with cancer, sought to promote Deng Xiaoping, whose economic reforms he thought essential to rescue China from the inward-looking xenophobia of the cultural revolution. Yet this was not a melodrama of evil and good, or even radicalism versus reform. Even Zhou had plenty of blood on his hands, voting for all Mao's decisions to deepen the cultural revolution; in Palmer's telling phrase, he "saved more monuments than people".

Just a few hundred miles away from the chairman's deathbed, thousands of ordinary Chinese were about to meet a sudden and much more horrific end. The earthquake hit Tangshan with the force of 400 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs, and its effect was felt as far afield as Beijing. Yet the help that arrived was patchy and almost all concentrated on the city, where the economically vital industrial equipment was located, rather than the rural areas. There were many heroic tales of people rescuing each other. There were also numerous cases of rape and looting. Palmer has interviewed survivors of the earthquake, some of whom had never before had a chance to tell their stories of struggling to survive in a city whose streets were lined with corpses and where help seemed very far off. One theme emerges clearly: the state was distracted by the crisis of succession and unable to deal with a more immediate and unexpected shock.

Palmer's account is written in enviably elegant prose. The narrative never flags and its judgments are humane and nuanced. The book argues that 1976 marks a moment of transition; after Mao's death, a swift series of internal coups and arrests brought the Gang of Four low and set the stage for Deng to take power within two years of Mao's death. The concentration on human stories means, however, that some of the factors that complicate the transition between the cultural revolution and the China of Deng Xiaoping are underplayed. We tend now to think of the era since Mao's death as the emergence of China into a capitalist world (in which Beijing has become one of the most skilled players). But during the first decade of reform, immediately post-Mao, the aim of Deng and his faction was to create a more market-oriented socialism in a world where they would engage with the USSR as well as the United States. In addition, important legal and economic reforms had already begun in the early 70s, along with the opening to the US. The death of Mao was a moment when China sought to rethink the cold war, rather than escape it.

Yet the significance of this book is reflected in the fact that a book entitled "The Death of Deng" would hardly have the same impact. Mao was the last Chinese leader whose death would unleash a personalised factional battle that could end in violence. In 2011, Hong Kong news sources wrongly reported the death of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. The moment was embarrassing but not politically relevant. Yet just four decades ago, leaders did not retire and die peacefully. Former president Liu Shaoqi died as a prisoner in agony from medical mistreatment in a basement in 1969. Mao himself hung on as chairman to the last possible moment. Deng's achievement after Mao's death was to use his own force of personality to create a regular changeover of distinctly uncharismatic leaders.

Palmer ends with a reflection on the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. There, effective rescuers arrived within hours, unlike in Tangshan. But the aftermath of 2008 has been just as murky as in 1976. Locals who have tried to investigate official corruption that might have allowed substandard construction that caused buildings to collapse have been arrested and intimidated. The artist Ai Weiwei, who has spoken out on behalf of the earthquake victims, has been subjected to a (still ongoing) cat-and-mouse strategy by the authorities. This account of the links between natural disaster and elite politics in China is a fine work of history. But its real relevance may be that it shows how much has changed in China, and yet how little, since 1976.

• Rana Mitter's Modern China: A Very Short Introduction is published by OUP.

High-speed rail has come to symbolise the cost-cutting and corruption that plagues China

China's high-speed rail network seemed to symbolise the nation's unstoppable rise: since the first line opened in 2007, it has built more than 6,000 miles of track and seemed poised to spread the magic into overseas markets, bidding aggressively against established international players. Yet this week, families were mourning the 39 dead and tending the 200 injured in Saturday's crash, the latest and worst episode in the high-speed rail fiasco. A project said to show China was poised for leadership in advanced technologies is collapsing in death, anger and embarrassment.

How it went so badly wrong carries some dark lessons for China. It's a story of corruption and corner-cutting and of responsibility passed around an opaque and untouchable bureaucracy. It is also a lesson in a nationalistic habit of "digesting" foreign technology, as one railway official put it, then changing it, so as to claim the result as a Chinese invention.

The lines have been plagued by breakdowns; the track, according to foreign experts, is substandard and likely to crack. The railway minister has been sacked and is under investigation for corruption, and costs have tripled. Bloggers claim the government is more intent on a cover up than an investigation.

These are not the only chickens coming home to roost. A series of scandals has wiped millions off the share price of several Chinese companies. Revelations of fraudulent accounting in China have shattered investor confidence. As with the rail, this has raised questions: without more accountability and transparency, is China really ready to take the next, difficult steps? How can a system that allows so little objective analysis ever achieve that accountability?

These are questions that matter as much to China's partners as they do to the government. Corruption has destroyed confidence in China's prestige projects. Corruption also kills: it killed children in Sichuan in 2008 when their schools collapsed, and migrant workers in Shanghai last year when their apartment building became a deadly inferno; it killed babies who were given poisoned milk, drivers on collapsing bridges and thousands each year with vegetables irrigated with contaminated water.

Corruption was a prominent theme in President Hu Jintao's speech to the Communist party's recent 90th birthday celebrations, as it has been in almost every leader's speech for decades. Yet the conditions that make such corruption endemic remain untouched: the monopoly of power in the hands of an untouchable institution. The prosecution of individuals, however high-profile the trials, has done nothing to change that.

China's 30-year economic rise has been impressive, but suspicion over basic data makes it all but impossible to determine how sustainable it is. The boastful speed of railway construction recalls the Great Leap Forward in the late 50s, when officials were set absurd targets for food production and duly reported them met. Some 30 million people starved to death. The leadership's response to each of these disasters has been the same: to suppress discussion, silence the victims and paint itself as the solution, not the problem. Last week, when local witnesses protested that railway officials had hastily buried wrecked carriages, there was indignation but little surprise. China Digital Times reported that the central propaganda department had instructed the media that they "must speedily report whatever information is released by the Railway Ministry".

Unless systemic lessons are learned, there is more to fear. China is embarking on the world's biggest and fastest expansion of nuclear power. The world must pray the industry will somehow prove immune to the curse of corner cutting, secrecy and corruption – or the potential consequences are chilling.

'Grandpa will be thinking of you,' Hu Jintao tells young survivor after he cuts trip short to fly into mainly Tibetan area

China's president, Hu Jintao, today flew into the western town devastated by an earthquake, pledging swift rebuilding in the predominantly Tibetan area, as the death toll climbed to 1,700.

Chinese state television showed him cradling an injured young Tibetan survivor and assuring her: "You will have a bright future. Grandpa will be thinking of you."

Hu cut short an official trip to South America because of the disaster in Yushu county, Qinghai province. State news agency Xinhua reported today that 1,706 people have died, with 256 still missing and 12,128 injured.

It also said that a 68-year-old man had been pulled alive from rubble in the town of Jiegu this morning after 100 hours.

Professor Robert Barnett, an expert on Tibetan issues at Columbia University in New York, said the government's brisk handling of the disaster was striking.

He added: "It's certainly interpreted cynically by Tibetan intellectuals and those on the internet ... on the ground it might be very different."

Although Yushu was not one of the Tibetan areas of Qinghai which saw unrest in 2008, there have been some signs of underlying tensions since Wednesday's quake.

Many blamed Chinese mining for causing the disaster, while some monks complained they had not been given sufficient credit for their rescue work.

But Barnett noted: "Yushu is almost the only area [in the Tibetan plateau] where local officials do have a pretty good relationship with their community."

He said that authorities did not appear to have encouraged non-Tibetan immigration, often a source of rancour, and had allowed Tibetan non-government organisations dealing with environment and community issues to emerge.

"People are on a leash, but it's a much longer leash and they appreciate that."

He said the mobilisation of the monks – who have played a major role in rescue and relief work – was unprecedented.

"It's not a disparate emotional response but an incredibly organised one," he said.

Despite the efforts of both officials and monks, many survivors are still struggling in the sub-zero overnight temperatures.

Zou Ming, head of disaster relief at the ministry of civil affairs, told a news conference in Beijing: "At the moment the supplies that have been sent are enough to ensure people there have shelter, food and water. Of course, there are shortages, and a lot of supplies are still in transit."

Hundreds of lorries carrying everything from earthmoving equipment and generators to plastic piping and instant noodles have been making the 560 mile journey from the provincial capital of Xining to the remote disaster zone, along with lengthy army convoys.

Aman Yee, deputy manager of Oxfam's China unit and part of a team handing out thousands of blankets in Yushu, said: "There is quite a lot of material but there are problems distributing it to the people who need it most."

One local resident, Dongzhu, told Reuters: "Our first problem is that there aren't enough tents, and too many of the ones that are arriving are going to people with influence."

He said speedy reconstruction was essential before the bitter winter arrives and added there was "absolutely no way" inhabitants could pay for it themselves. Qinghai is one of the poorest parts of China.

The Dalai Lama said he would like to visit the quake zone to offer survivors comfort. It is highly unlikely Beijing would allow the exiled spiritual leader to return to China for the first time since he fled Tibet in 1959, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

People's Republic invests £10m to tackle earthquakes and natural disasters at home and abroad

China is investing almost £10m this year to more than double the size of its international search and rescue squad.

The move follows 2008's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, south-west China, which left an estimated 90,000 dead or missing.

Huang Jianfa, a division director at the Chinese Earthquake Administration, said today: "We will be able to send more teams to operations overseas and that's one of the reasons we are expanding."

While critics say China is not taking on responsibilities to match its greater role in the world, Beijing points to contributions such as its increased commitment to UN peacekeeping forces and its help in international disasters.

The rescue squad, founded in 2001, sent 60 members to Haiti last month.

China will inject 100m yuan (£9.64m) to increase the team's numbers from 220 to 500 by the year's end, Huang said.

Another 5,000 rescue workers belong to purely domestic teams around China but train at the squad's centre north-west of Beijing.

There they conduct exercises in a simulated disaster zone which are an eerie echo of real tragedies: sniffer dogs scrabble over collapsed buildings and rescuers call out to potential survivors. Others descend from tilting apartment blocks, with plastic "children" strapped to their backs.

Liu Xiangyang, who commands the rescue corps, said: "I believe this is good for [how people perceive] China. In the past what we gave was food and materials – now we can save lives, and life is the most precious thing of all."

But he added: "The pressure is bigger on overseas jobs. Most of our team speak English but sometimes the locals do not, so it's very difficult to understand how deeply people are buried or how badly they are injured."

The team also includes 20 paramedics and specialists in building structures.

State media reported that 29 people were injured in a 5.1-magnitude quake in south-western Yunnan province yesterday.

Tan Zuoren jailed over Tiananmen Square article but supporters say detention owing to research into death of pupils in quake

A Chinese activist who investigated the deaths of children in schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake was today jailed for five years for subversion, his lawyer said.

The court in Chengdu sentenced Tan Zuoren over comments he made in online articles about the violent crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. But he and his supporters believe he was detained owing to his research into the deaths of thousands of pupils. Charges related to his investigation were ignored in the verdict.

"The court was very smart. They took out any mention of the earthquake from the verdict because they are afraid of referring to it," said his lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang.

The quake in the south-western province in May 2008 left almost 90,000 people dead or missing. But parents demanded to know why many schools collapsed even when buildings around them stood firm. As public outrage about poor quality construction grew, authorities stamped out any discussion of the matter, harassing parents who protested.

Tan, 55, received the maximum sentence for subverting state power, highlighting what human rights groups describe as an increasingly punitive environment for dissidents. He plans to appeal.

The lawyer of another man who campaigned over the deaths of Sichuan children said today that a court had upheld his three year sentence on appeal. Huang Qi, a well known activist, was convicted in November of revealing state secrets after trying to gather information on shoddy school construction.

Tan's wife, Wang Qinghua, was not allowed to attend the 10-minute sentencing session. "Even one day of imprisonment is too much. He only exercised his freedom of expression and addressed corruption from his own conscience," she told Amnesty International.

"Tan's case is the most important one to take place recently, because it is a sign of a huge step backwards in China's judicial ethics and independence after decades of reform and opening," said Ai Weiwei, a leading artist who has also attempted to tally the number of pupils who died in the disaster.

"Tan Zuoren received such a serious punishment only for believing or writing in his [online] diaries that there were problems with the earthquake. It is ridiculous. Though China claims to the world that it is a major country, the case just shows how fragile and lacking in confidence it is."

Hong Kong radio station RTHK said police tried to block nine journalists from the territory from interviewing Tan's lawyer outside the court.

Chen Yunfei, another Sichuan activist, tweeted that he had wanted to attend the sentencing but that police arrived at his house last night to stop him doing so.

"[Tan's] arrest, unfair trial and now the guilty verdict are further disturbing examples of how the Chinese authorities use vague and over broad laws to silence and punish dissenting voices," said Roseann Rife, Asia-Pacific deputy director at Amnesty.

"The Chinese authorities cannot continue to claim that they are dealing with human rights defenders according to the law when they violate so many of their own legal procedures in cases like this."

Tan stood trial in August last year, but his lawyers were unable to call witnesses to testify or to show video footage they had prepared. Police also detained and threatened supporters including Ai.

Veteran dissident Huang Qi given three years for critical website articles about regime's response to Sichuan disaster

A Chinese court has sentenced a veteran dissident convicted of spying to three years in prison.

Huang Qi was convicted of illegally possessing state secrets by the Wuhou district court in the western city of Chengdu, his wife Zeng Li said by telephone.

Zeng said no details were given about the charge, an ill-defined accusation often used by Communist leaders to clamp down on dissent and imprison activists.

Huang was detained on 10 June 2008 after posting articles on his website criticising the government's response to the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province that killed about 90,000 people. Huang also spoke to foreign media about parents' criticism that their children had been crushed in badly built schools. The government has tried to suppress such complaints.

Zeng said Huang was taken directly from the court without being allowed to speak. She believed he would appeal the sentence.

Calls to the court and Huang's lawyer, Mo Shaoping, rang unanswered.

Huang previously served a five-year prison sentence on subversion charges linked to politically sensitive articles posted on his website.

Since his release in 2005 he had supported a wide range of causes, including families of those killed in the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing and farmers involved in land disputes with authorities.

Artistic director of Beijing 798 Biennale says deputy wanted publicity from booking 'too sensitive' performance artists

Works about the Sichuan earthquake and other sensitive issues have been banned from a Beijing art show that was to involve controversial figures, its artistic director said today.

The group exhibition at the 798 space, a former electronics factory in the Dashanzi art district, north-east of central Beijing, covered themes including the death of children in schools that collapsed in the quake. The show, the centrepiece of the Beijing 798 Biennale, reopened today but without some of the contentious works.

Zhu Qi, the artistic director of the Biennale, said he told the exhibition's deputy director not to include performance art involving people likely to stir up controversy. They included "Runner Fan", a teacher who became notorious after posting an article on the web saying he fled his school ahead of his pupils during the earthquake; Liu Xiaoyuan, a prominent blogger and lawyer; and the owners of the Chongqing nailhouse who became famous for refusing to leave their home even when developers demolished all the buildings around it.

"I had not approved it because I thought it was too sensitive. But he wanted the publicity," Zhu said.

Local officials failed to respond when the district's managers notified them of the show's content, leading the managers to ban several works – including a drama performed by migrant workers, a documentary on the earthquake and a memorial to a 12-year-old victim of the disaster. Some artists then decided to withdraw and demolished their own works.

Zhu said he had first raised the possibility of including the contentious figures, but later decided it was better to go ahead without them.

Yuan Tingxuan, speaking for the artists involved, said they had withdrawn from the biennale as a result but managed to hold performances – including those with Fan and Liu – at other venues in the district. He said either staff from the management office or police officers had come to take photos of the artists, but otherwise they had felt no pressure.

Yuan said the group chose to work with controversial figures who had gained fame online because the internet was now such an important part of life. "We also hope from [our working with] these people, more and more artists would start concerning themselves with society rather than being only engaged in their own small, internal, arty world," he added.

Yin Huajun and Zhu Yuncui are newly-weds and it shows. It's the way Yuncui nestles into his shoulder, the pride with which they show their wedding pictures, and the self-consciousness as they nudge each other to speak.

Their home is a prefabricated cube, with metal walls and a concrete floor, in a camp for earthquake survivors. But a cosy ­armchair sits in a corner and a bright curtain screens off their bed. In their laps, the couple hold cherished possessions from the days before the disaster: framed photographs of his late wife and her late husband.

Today will mark the first anniversary of the 7.9-magnitude shock that tore through Sichuan, killing up to 90,000 and leaving 5 million people homeless. In Beichuan, where the couple lived, as few as 4,000 of the town's 22,000 residents survived. Most were separated from those they loved – the quake struck in early afternoon, when families were scattered across fields, ­factories, shops and schools.

For both Huajun and Yuncui, it destroyed marriages spanning two decades. Yet eight months later, in January, they chose to wed again.

At least 600 survivors from the town have remarried and officials hope that more will follow in the near future. The authorities have paid for group weddings and plan to hold a matchmaking fair. A local women's group has hired an agent to help widows find love again.

These "restructured families" offer more than emotional support. Sichuan is a poor region. Households with two adults are more likely to support themselves financially. They also require not two homes but one, lessening the strain of the mammoth reconstruction programme.

Yang Yongfu, Beichuan's deputy civil affairs chief, has warned that remarriage will be "anything but easy". Enduring grief, and disputes over property, children and responsibilities, all pile pressure on couples. "These new families often have children and in-laws from the previous marriage. Some families need to care for eight elderly people and four children," he added.

Huajun and Yuncui's children are grown up and supported their parents' decision. But her son Wang Cao slips from the room, eyes red with grief, as his mother recalls his "gentle, hardworking" father.

"Sometimes she talks about her late husband and I mention my late wife. We trust each other," said Huajun.

Both were away from their homes when the quake struck at 2.28pm on 12 May 2008. Struggling to his feet, Huajun looked across the valley to his house and saw only a mound of rubble.

Yuncui survived because she was slow to escape from the third floor of her factory. Seven women fleeing ahead of her disappeared as the staircase collapsed. Then the roof fell in, pinning her and her colleague under rubble.

"We screamed for help all afternoon but no one came. We had no idea how terrible it was outside," she said.

Buildings had keeled over or crumbled, landslides had buried large parts of the town and boulders the size of cars had crushed everything in their path.

Glimpsing a tiny speck of daylight, Yuncui vowed to work herself free. Hours later, she hauled herself out and pulled her friend free. They stepped off the building: the third floor now stood just one metre above ground.

Across town, her home had collapsed upon her husband. "I couldn't accept that he was gone. Every man I saw looked like him," she said.

In August, she was among 5,000 survivors to move into the settlement in Mianyang. A few streets away, Huajun was living alone and drinking heavily: "I hoped to make myself numb," he said. But when his aunt introduced him to Yuncui he could not help noticing both her sweet nature and her dogged independence. She was struck by his respect for her children and his dedication to his job as a community worker. A few months later, they wed.

The accelerated pace of their relationship reflects the speed with which survivors have tried to rebuild their lives. In Yongxing there are grocery shops, cafes, and a shop selling TV sets and electric fans. New year messages are pasted at the doorways and neighbours gather to chat. But the illusion of normality is a thin one. Families of six are often squeezed into these little cubes, and the sound of the television next door reverberates through slight walls. Outside, posters along the streets illustrate common trauma symptoms.

The government has promised Beichuan residents permanent homes by the end of the year. But despite impressive reconstruction efforts, the scale of need remains overwhelming. Across the earthquake zone, some still live in makeshift shelters of planks and canvas. Others wonder how to scrape together cash for even the affordable new homes promised by the government. There is plenty of casual labour on construction sites, but few long-term jobs on offer.

In this transient environment, people who have lost everything yearn for a new anchor.

"In the older generation, Chinese people didn't remarry after their spouse died," said Zhang Yong, the settlement's burly policeman, who wed again recently. "But if you live alone there's no one to talk to and share your thoughts with. My wife lost her son so her hurt is even worse than mine."

He hoped for companionship, financial stability and a maternal influence for his 11-year-old twin daughters. But his home unit lacks the cosiness of Yuncui and Huajun's. It is sparsely furnished, with a desk but no sofa and bunk beds in the corner. A pink plastic mirror taped to the wall is the sole feminine touch.

"Legally we are married, but not ­practically," he said. His new wife is an official too, assigned to a centre two hours away. His daughters board at school in the week. When shifts work out, they see each other weekly; more often, they snatch a day or so each fortnight. For Zhang, as for millions across Sichuan, the warmth and security of his past life remains a distant dream.

He pulled on his cigarette and gazed at the ceiling. "After everything settles down we will all live together and make a real family," he promised himself.

Days before the anniversary of the earthquake that killed nearly 90,000 people in a mountainous region of south-western China, officials have finally announced the number of schoolchildren who died.

The figure of 5,335 is lower than previous estimates and some parents have questioned its accuracy. Overall, the authorities say that around 70,000 people died in the Sichuan earthquake and another 18,000 are presumed dead.

The children's deaths caused outrage because thousands of school classrooms collapsed, in many cases while buildings around them stood firm.

Chinese officials said that the magnitude of the earthquake was to blame, but experts blamed poor design, substandard building work and lax enforcement of standards.

As pressure built the authorities stifled discussion of the issue and parents suffered harassment and detention for protesting – with even an eight-year-old boy held on one occasion, according to an Amnesty International report last week.

One father, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian: "We protested for justice but it didn't really work out ... When we tried to deal with it by legal means we didn't succeed, so there's no way for us to relieve our suffering."

Shortly after the earthquake Reuters estimated that around 9,000 schoolchildren died, using figures from reports by the state news agency and local media.

• First official tally of victims when schools collapsed last year
• Figures released days before anniversary of disaster

China said today that 5,335 schoolchildren and students had died or remained missing after last year's Sichuan earthquake, the first official tally in what became a politically charged issue because of allegations of corruption and shoddy school construction.

The overall death toll in the May 12 quake was unchanged at 68,712. Almost 18,000 people are still listed as missing, the head of Sichuan civil affairs department, Huang Mingquan, said in the provincial capital of Chengdu.

The government began a count of the dead and missing within hours of the magnitude 7.9 quake, which destroyed huge portions of Sichuan, but authorities have refused until now to say how many pupils were killed when thousands of classrooms collapsed while buildings around them remained intact.

The issue has been an enduring source of grief for parents. They say the schools crumbled so easily because corruption and mismanagement led to slipshod construction methods and weak buildings that were not up to standard. Some say materials meant for school construction projects were sold by contractors for personal gain.

Parents who protested have been detained or warned against speaking out. Activists sympathetic to their cause have been harassed or taken away by police.

Officials blamed the power of the quake for the number of flattened schools, and said compiling and confirming the names of the pupils was a complicated process.

No reason was given for the release of the figures today , days before the first anniversary of the disaster.

In a transcript of the press conference posted on the Sichuan government's website, officials said that "once there is concrete evidence to prove that problems exist in building designs and construction, relevant departments will investigate according to law".

Liu Xiaoying, whose 12-year-old daughter was killed when the three-storey Fuxin No 2 primary school collapsed, said she was sure the toll was much higher. "I hope the investigation will continue and that the people responsible will be seriously punished," she said.

Liu is under surveillance after travelling to Beijing twice to petition the central government. "I hope the government will really do what they say they would and not brush off us parents," she said. "If this is the case, the hearts of my husband and I will be more at ease."

Ai Weiwei, an artist and high-profile critic of Beijing's policies, said the announcement was a sign that the government may be caving in to "pressure of the common people, pressure from the media," but it was still an empty gesture.

"There's no significance to this announcement because it didn't give any names or any other information on where they died, which schools or which classes they were in," Ai said. "This is nonsense."

In his blog, Ai has confirmed almost 5,000 pupil names and estimates that the toll could reach 8,000. He said that at least 20 of his helpers had been detained by local authorities.

Tan Zuoren, who conducted his own investigation into 64 schools in the quake zone, has estimated that more than 5,600 pupils are dead or missing. Tan, who has since been detained on suspicion of subversion, said that number was incomplete.

The official China Daily newspaper today reported that a circular issued by the cabinet had ordered safety controls for the construction of schools to be strengthened. The circular those who engaged in illegal practices would be severely punished.

China to strengthen buildings after deaths of thousands of children in Sichuan disaster

The Chinese government will spend an extra 8bn yuan (£800m) to strengthen schools in earthquake-prone areas after thousands of pupils died in the Sichuan disaster last year, state media reported today.

The news comes a day after activists reported that a man had been detained for attempting to organise a full tally of students who died in their schools.

Up to 90,000 people are thought to have died when a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit south-western China in May last year. But some parents blame shoddy construction linked to corruption for their children's deaths, pointing out that many school buildings collapsed while surrounding structures withstood the shock.

A statement issued by the State Council, China's cabinet, said schools in earthquake-susceptible areas would be reinforced, adding: "The safety of school buildings directly relates to the safety of teachers and students, and is related to social harmony and stability."

Official newspapers said the project would take three years and focus on schools in the poorer central and western parts of the country.

The chair of the committee investigating the earthquake has acknowledged that poor quality building may have played a part in the deaths of so many children, but the authorities began suppressing discussion of the issue after public outrage mounted. Parents have been harassed and detained for protesting.

Yesterday the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network said that police had detained activist Tan Zuoren on state subversion charges. Calls to his family home went unanswered.

The network said that in February this year he had published a proposal urging internet users and parents who had lost their children to compile a list of the victims. He also called for an investigation into the quality of school buildings which collapsed and the treatment of bereaved parents.

Police have previously detained at least three other activists pressing for information about the dead children.

One was sentenced to a year in a labour camp for posting pictures of collapsed schools on the internet, while another has been in detention for nine months, charged with "illegal possession of state secrets".

Weight of water may have affected disaster that killed 90,000 in Sichuan last year

Pressure from a large dam could have helped to trigger the earthquake which killed up to 90,000 people in south-west China last year, some scientists have claimed.

Chinese and overseas experts suggested that the weight of waters in the Zipingpu Dam in Sichuan may have affected the timing or scale of the 7.9 magnitude quake. The dam stands just 3.5 miles from the epicentre.

Scientists agree that dams can produce tremors. But several today played down the claims that this was an issue in Sichuan, arguing that the area lies on an active fault line and that the shock was too great for the reservoir to be a major factor.

Fan Xiao, a chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said May's earthquake was the largest in the area for thousands of years and suggested that the weight of the reservoir's waters – 315m tonnes – was a key factor.

"I'm not saying the earthquake would not have happened without the dam, but the presence of the massive Zipingpu dam may have changed the size or time of the quake, thus creating a more violent quake," he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Fan said sudden changes in the water level – like the rapid drop at Zipingpu shortly before the quake – could greatly destabilise an existing fault.

He added that he had opposed the dam's construction in 2003 because he was worried about such a disaster and was concerned that dams are now being built on the Dadu and Jinsha rivers to the west and north-west of the quake zone.

The Chinese government has promoted the building of large dams to reduce flooding and meet the country's energy needs without increasing pollution from coal-fired power stations.

Christian Klose, a geophysical hazards research scientist from Columbia University in New York, has also suggested the extra water could have triggered the earthquake.

But in a blog posting on the subject he warned: "Scientific evidence for such a statement is needed! Some questions need to be answered: How much water was impounded, where and when? Did resulting stress changes alter stresses deep in the Earth's crust? Were stress alterations significantly large enough? Where was the highest seismic energy release – close to the reservoir?"

Dr Alex Densmore of Durham University, who was studying the Sichuan fault before the quake and has carried out further work there since, said he was "pretty sceptical".

"The fault the earthquake happened on is active; we know there have been earthquakes there in the past and geologically that happened yesterday – just a few thousand years ago. It's impossible to say whether or not the reservoir might have advanced the time of the earthquake, but if it did so it did it by a very short period.

"The size of the earthquake is ultimately determined by the length of the fault which breaks and how far the two sides move relative to each other. A reservoir by itself isn't going to affect those things … It won't give you a bigger earthquake than you would otherwise have had."

Dr Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey said the Aswan Dam was a good example of how large reservoirs could produce earthquakes in previously unaffected areas.

But he said he would be extremely doubtful that the Sichuan dam had played a role unless there was a record of smaller quakes dating back to when it was filled.

Musson added: "That kind of [induced] earthquake can go up to magnitude 6.5, let's say. This earthquake was totally outside that level and was on a 300km-long rupture. That's a major tectonic fault.

"To my mind it's a sterile discussion [anyway] – either the earthquake is going to happen or it's not. If you have advanced it by a year or two, is that a big deal?"

Lei Xinglin, a geophysicist at the government's China Earthquake Administration, called for further investigation.

"A reservoir in the region will have positive and negative effects on a potential earthquake, but it is ridiculous to say an earthquake was caused by the dam," he told AP.

"We still need to carefully research this topic rather than jumping to conclusions."

Huang Qi arrested for trying to hold officials accountable over collapse of shoddily built schools, say supporters

A Chinese court will tomorrow try a human rights activist for illegal possession of state secrets after he helped parents whose children died in last year's devastating earthquake, his wife has said.

Huang Qi, 45, was detained in Sichuan in June, a month after the disaster killed up to 90,000 in the province. Many were pupils who died when their schools collapsed.

The chair of the committee investigating the earthquake has acknowledged that shoddy building may have played a part in the deaths of so many children. But authorities have clamped down on discussion of the subject and in Sichuan protesting parents have been harassed and briefly detained.

Huang's wife, Zeng Li, said the court in Chengdu, the provincial capital, told her today that he would be tried on the state security charge.

"They didn't say what specifically he was accused of and they have not allowed him or the lawyers to see any documents or evidence," she told Reuters. "It was because of the earthquake and putting out statements on behalf of the families and helping them with advice."

The charge carries a sentence of up to three years in prison.

Lawyers and even judges are not allowed to see the documents in question or challenge their classification, said Nicholas Bequelin, a China specialist at Human Rights Watch.

"There's no real avenue to challenge the validity of whatever authorities classify as a state secret," said Bequelin. "My understanding is that the case against Huang has no validity. He was arrested because he tried to hold officials accountable for specific schools that collapsed."

Mo Shaoping, one of Huang's lawyers, said the defence team had not been told the charges or the trial date, and there was little hope of postponing. He had learned of the case only via Zeng.

"This is a serious violation of Huang Qi's right to a defence," Mo added.

Huang founded his Tianwang website a decade ago to reunite families with missing people. Others began posting articles on sensitive issues such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, resulting in the banning of the site and Huang's imprisonment for two years for inciting subversion. He was released in 2005.

The site, now hosted overseas, is still blocked in China. But Huang remains well-known for helping ordinary people defend their rights.

In a scathing letter of protest following his arrest, several web commentators in Sichuan asked: "Is any citizen fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to see or hear any information inconsistent with government talking points then in illegal possession of state secrets? … That would suggest that every single earthquake victim who spoke with Huang is also in illegal possession of state secrets."

A court official said he did not know about the case and would not answer questions from foreign media.

Six months after the Sichuan earthquake, only a quarter of the 70,000 victims have been identified, says official

Six months after the Sichuan earthquake, only around a quarter of the 70,000 victims have been identified, a Chinese official said today.

The details emerged as leaders of the south-western province warned that survivors faced a grim winter, with some living in tents with little insulation and struggling to find sufficient food and warm clothing. The 7.9-magnitude shock left almost 4 million people homeless.

Temperatures can fall to well below freezing in the mountains and Wei Hong, the executive vice-governor of Sichuan, said experts predicted they would be up to one degree Celsius colder than usual this year.

"Some senior citizens and children are in need of basic equipment to keep them warm," he said. "People in some quake-stricken areas even face the tough problem of provisions for this winter and the coming spring."

Wei said that a staggering amount of work was still needed, and that the region would need 3 trillion yuan (£296bn) by 2010.

By the middle of this month, almost 200,000 homes had been rebuilt and 685,000 homes were under reconstruction. But another 1.94m households still needed to be rebuilt or repaired and sites were still being selected for 25 townships which needed to be relocated.

Asked how many students had died in schools that collapsed in the quake, Wei said 19,065.

However, Li Jiang, from the Sichuan provincial propaganda office, later said that figure referred to the total number of bodies identified, blaming mistranslation by an official interpreter.

The deaths of thousands of children in collapsed schools became a highly sensitive issue for the authorities after outrage spread through China about shoddy building standards.

Reports have been banished from the media and parents who sought investigations or tried to sue local authorities have been harassed.

Soldiers took photographs and hair and blood samples before burying victims in mass graves in the hope that DNA testing might identify bodies in the future.

But given the devastation wrought by the earthquake, some bodies may never be recovered. In some cases, there may be few relatives left to identify victims.

On top of the 70,000 confirmed dead, 18,000 people are still listed as missing.

"Most of our cadres and people have overcome the shadow of the earthquake," Wei said. "They are working hard to rebuild their homes and most have found balance in their lives."

Asked about the suicide of two officials in the quake zone in as many months, he said: "We recognise that the earthquake has still left some deeply damaged in their hearts. We are very sympathetic about the suicides, but the reason for the suicides is not just the trauma but other causes too."

Thousands of schoolchildren died in the Sichuan earthquake. Their parents blame corrupt or incompetent builders and local officials, yet Beijing seems keener to gag the bereaved than punish the culprits. Report by Tania Branigan. Pictures by Dan Chung