BEIJING — Provincial officials on Thursday released the first official tally of student deaths from the earthquake in China last May, saying that 5,335 children had been either killed or remain missing. Another 546 were left disabled, they said.
Previous estimates placed the number of students who died in the collapse of school buildings as high as 9,000. Overall, government officials say that 70,000 people died during the May 12 Sichuan quake, and another 18,000 are listed as missing but are presumed to be dead.
The issue of student deaths remains a contentious one in China. Many of the parents of those who died in the rubble of classrooms say the buildings were poorly constructed; the government has largely quashed the issue by harassing or detaining parents who insisted on pressing the matter.
During a news conference in the city of Chengdu, Tu Wentao, head of the provincial education department, insisted that the student death figures were accurate.
“These numbers were reached through legal methods,” he said. “We have wide agreement on these numbers.”
According to the official media, 7,000 schools collapsed during the quake and another 14,000 were damaged. Although the central government initially promised to investigate why so many schools fell while surrounding buildings remained intact, they have yet to release any results. In the past, provincial officials have blamed the high death toll on the quake’s power, not flimsily built schools.
More than 5 million people were left homeless by the quake, although the government says most of those are now living in temporary or permanent housing.
Parents who have been pressing the government for a genuine investigation into the cause of the school collapses have reported intense harassment and threats from officials in recent days, as the one-year anniversary of the earthquake draws nearer.
The parents of 126 children who died in Fuxin No. 2 Primary School in the town of Mianzhu have been among the most outspoken — and among the most watched by the government. Sang Jun, who lost his 11-year-old son last year, said in a telephone interview that dozens of parents are now being watched by about 200 officials and security officers.
The Mianzhu government sent people to monitor the parents on Monday. An official told Mr. Sang that the parents would be under close watch until after May 12, and that any contact with foreign journalists was considered “unfavorable to China,” Mr. Sang said.
Mr. Sang and his wife met with a reporter and photographer from The New York Times last week to discuss their grievances. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/world/asia/06quake.html At the time, several parents were willing to secretly meet with journalists in their homes.
Mr. Sang said a half-dozen people, mostly village officials, had been watching his home this week. He drove them away after an argument on Wednesday morning. His house is on the edge of a wheat field and close to the site of the Fuxin school, where construction is taking place on new school buildings financed by Taiwanese money.
Mr. Sang said people are being paid 150 renminbi per day, or $22, by the local government to watch the school site and roads leading into the village. Foreign journalists trying to interview parents have been detained and have had equipment broken by security officers in recent weeks, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Beijing, which advocates for greater media freedoms in China.
A reporter for the Financial Times was punched on May 5 by a thug, possibly a security officer in plain clothes, while conducting interviews around Mianzhu. After he and his colleagues retreated to their car, they were surrounded by a dozen hostile men, one of whom tried to punch a Chinese news assistant.
Liu Xiaoying, whose daughter died in the Fuxin school, said a French television crew was detained by security officers and led out of the temporary housing camp where Ms. Liu lives after the officers learned that the crew was interviewing Ms. Liu, who is four months pregnant.
A group of parents from Mianzhu secretly traveled to Beijing and filed a petition on Monday at the central government’s petitioning center. It was the third time parents from Mianzhu had tried to file a complaint in Beijing. Employees at the petitioning center immediately notified officials in Mianzhu, who then had people in Beijing detain the parents and escort them back to Sichuan Province, Mr. Sang said.
The parents arrived back in Mianzhu on Wednesday morning but were immediately forced into a hospital and told they would be checked for swine flu, Mr. Sang said.
A woman answering the telephone in the Propaganda Department of the Mianzhu government said she had no immediate comment on the reports of harassment or on the school collapses. 
