The government said it would investigate why so many school buildings collapsed in the quake and severely punish anyone responsible for shoddy construction. Officials in at least six provinces promised to tear down dangerous school buildings to protect students, state media reported. The quake destroyed about 6,900 classrooms, not including those in the hardest-hit counties.

China's education system is chronically underfunded. Building experts said the problem here, as in many other parts of the world, was a lack of commitment by governments to improve the quality of school buildings.

"Schools should never collapse, and hospitals and fire stations should never collapse. These are all civic structures that are needed in a disaster," said Roger Bilham, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "So when I hear a school has collapsed, I point the finger at politics."

More than 4 million apartments and homes were damaged or destroyed in Sichua

So sad.

I was watching the news with my son last night and they filmed a woman alone trying to pull her daughter out of the rubble. My son said, why didnt the put down the damn cameras and help her, she needed help more than we needed to see her suffering.