CHINA EARTHQUAKE: PORTRAITS OF GRIEF

“ I just want to hug her one more time but all I have left is her picture. " Xiang Xiao Fang, 31, holding a picture of her daughter Xu Li Ling,10, said. Zhen Rongqiong, 35, who lost her 10-years-old daughter Liu Wen Bo, found her daughter's body at the foot of the stairs lying with other 29 bodies of the dead children at 3am a day after.“When I saw her lying there, a part of me died.”

Losing a child has been described as the worst kind of loss anyone could possibly go through. In the May 12, 2008 earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan Province, nearly 70,000 people were killed, with many thousands more missing and likely dead. Among them, at least 9,000 of them were schoolchildren who were crushed to death by falling school buildings.

Why did so many schools collapse? Victims of family, most of them are farmers and migrant workers, suspect corruption was behind these poorly built schools, known as "tofu construction.” The government promised further investigation initially but later most of the parents were forced to sign the agreement that they will accept money and will not further hold govenment accountable for further investigation.