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This is the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake in China that killed 70,000, according to ABC, or 90,000, according to NBC and CBS. All three newscasts dispatched a correspondent to Sichuan for the first time this year to cover the mourning. NBC's Ian Williams and CBS' Celia Hatton both focused on the calamity of so many crushed schoolhouses, especially pitiful in a society that forces couples to give birth to just one child. CBS' Hatton was in Mianyang where she contrasted the failure rate of government buildings--at 13%--with the 65% found in schools: many bereaved parents believe "corrupt builders cut corners while officials looked the other way." Sichuan police questioned CBS' Hatton during her reporting; a Financial Times journalist was assaulted. Williams filed an NBC In Depth report from Hanwang, where authorities barred parents from mourning en masse at the site of the collapsed school "to maintain social order."
Both Hatton and Williams noted the official statistic that 5,300 schoolchildren died. NBC's Williams called it "a figure ridiculed by parents;" "the real total is thought to be far higher," was how CBS' Hatton put it.
ABC's Terry McCarthy traveled to the mountainous town of Beichuan closest to the earthquake's epicenter. Some 13,000 people died there, fully half of Beichuan's population. "Today the whole area has been fenced off and Beichuan has literally become a ghost town." The surviving population lives in temporary housing 40 miles away while a new Beichuan is being constructed away from the valley on the open plain.
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