BEIJING -- Children who died when their school exploded in southeast China were forced to make fireworks in class, their parents said Thursday. The father of an 11-year-old victim said he was among the first to arrive at the scene and saw dead children in the rubble still clutching fuses in their hands.
State media said 42 people were killed and 27 injured. Parents gave figures of between 53 and more than 60 four of them teachers, the rest children. Many bodies were dismembered. Parts of one boy were found in a nearby river, said the father of a 9-year-old who died.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji blamed a man with mental problems for Tuesday's explosion, which reduced the school in Fang Lin village, Jiangxi province, to a pile of bricks, books and furniture. The official Xinhua News Agency identified him as a 33-year-old fireworks maker, Li Chuicai, and said he was known in the village as "psycho."
The agency said police found a notebook and papers in his home containing the confused phrase: "I'll sacrifice myself with 100 pounds of silver saltpeter, blast all, burn all, killing dozens of them at the very least."
But parents said government officials were lying. Zhang Chenggen said his 11-year-old son, who died, and other third- and fourth-graders had since 1998 been forced to assemble firecrackers in class, normally working a half-day. Profits subsidized school expenses and went to school officials, Zhang said.
The father of another 11-year-old victim said children were rushing to complete orders for China's traditional grave-sweeping festival on April 5, when families honor deceased relatives.
"Everybody knows it is caused by the fireworks," Zhang said by telephone. "The government is trying to cover the facts. Please do not believe them."
The explosion was not the first to kill children in China's fireworks industry. Last March, 17 children the youngest aged 8 were among 35 people killed when a fireworks factory exploded in another Jiangxi village about 30 miles from Tuesday's blast. The children earned 12 cents a day for fitting fuses to firecrackers, the state-run newspaper Southern Weekend reported.
In poor villages all along Jiangxi's mountainous border with Hunan province, fireworks are a key industry. Most are put together by hand in family workshops for sale nationwide, with some officials paid to look the other way, the Southern Weekend said.
In Fang Lin, about 30 families make fireworks at home, including the village's Communist Party leader and some school officials and teachers, said Zhang Shugen, whose 11-year-old son was killed in Tuesday's blast.
Teachers distributed the work to students, and pupils who refused to do it or told their parents were banned from classes or made to kneel on the classroom floor, Zhang said. Children and parents had little choice it was the village's only primary school.
The party secretary, who fled after the blast, was caught Wednesday by police and the school principal turned himself in, Zhang said. Thousands of people demonstrated Wednesday and again Thursday outside the school, demanding an investigation, he said.
"I was among the first batch of people to rush to the explosion site. I clearly saw the hands of some dead children still holding fuses," he said. "There is no doubt the fireworks they were making caused the explosion."
Funerals for the children were set for Friday, Zhang said. The government gave the family of each dead child $3,660 for funeral expenses, said the other father, Zhang Chenggen.
Police erected roadblocks around the village and detained at least three reporters who tried to reach the area.
The disaster, which came during the 11-day annual meeting of China's national legislature, is extremely embarrassing for Chinese leaders whose reputations have suffered from a string of fatal building collapses and fires.
Premier Zhu, denying that fireworks manufacturing in the school was to blame, said the explosion was caused by a man who carried a bag of fireworks into the school. Zhu and Xinhua said the man died in the explosion.
"According to initial investigation, he suffered from mental problems, but we'll continue with the investigation," Zhu told Hong Kong television.
Xinhua said police found chloric salt, sulfur and other chemicals at the home of the suspect that matched traces found at the site. The man started working in the fireworks industry at age 18 and knew how to make explosives, it said.
Four people saw him cycling to the school Tuesday with two sacks, and after he entered the school, three teachers and seven pupils "saw the whole process of the explosion that he initiated," Xinhua said, without explaining what happened.
The state-run Liao Shen Evening Paper quoted a teacher as saying a man dumped a sack of explosives on a student's desk and lit the fuse.
"I shouted for the students to run, then heard a huge noise and I don't know anything else," the teacher was quoted as saying.
But the newspaper also quoted a local government education official as saying that three years ago, teachers had asked students to attach fuses to fireworks.
"This was because firecracker factories had urgent orders," the official was quoted as saying. Teachers also made students work on fireworks last year, the newspaper cited some parents as saying.
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