Incense burns as China mourns quake dead

BEICHUAN, China (Reuters) - Mourners crowded ruins and graves in southwest China on Tuesday to mark one year since an earthquake shattered the region, as President Hu Jintao called the response to the calamity a model of patriotic resolve.

In Sichuan province, where the earthquake rippled out from Wenchuan County at 2:28 p.m. local time on May 12 last year, survivors and relatives gathered at devastated towns to mourn loved ones among the more than 80,000 people killed.

In Beichuan, a valley town wiped out by the quake and nowadays usually empty and sealed off by guards, locals and camera-snapping visitors poured in after police opened the gates.

Many residents lit incense and ritual paper money intended to comfort the dead. Ashes swirled in the blustery air.

Hu told foreign ambassadors visiting the quake area on Monday night that the disaster galvanised his nation, and he praised the fast steps to rebuild the region.

"Confronted with this immense disaster, the masses of Chinese people and military were as one, forming a fortress of unified resolve," Hu said, according to the Xinhua news agency.

After the quake, Chinese volunteers and donations inundated Sichuan.

But for many families of the dead, the anniversary was a painful re-encounter with the frantic scenes of 12 months ago, when bewildered residents and ill-equipped soldiers struggled to rescue survivors trapped in homes, offices and schools.

"I feel the earthquake isn't over yet. Every time I see something about it, I feel like crying," said Zhou Ya, a 20-year-old woman who lost a brother and sister in Beichuan, as she lit incense and ritual money in its ruins.

In Hanwang, a factory town ruined by the quake, mourners gathered at a mass grave on a nearby hill they said held thousands of victims, including workers and schoolchildren killed when their aged workshops and classrooms collapsed.

Parents of children killed in the Dongqi Middle School in Hanwang, like bereaved parents in many parts of the quake area, said neglect and poor standards contributed to the deaths.

That fury stoked protests in the wake of the quake. Ahead of the anniversary, razed schools and outspoken parents have been under guard by police and local officials.

The Hanwang school had been officially classified as dangerously dilapidated years before the quake, but wrangling over funds delayed plans to move the classrooms, according to parents and Chinese newspaper reports from last year.

"We came to remember our son. But this was not just a natural disaster. He died from people's actions," said Fu Xingneng, who said he believed his son Fu Cheng was buried in the mass grave.

Officials prevented any memorial gathering on the morning of the anniversary at Juyuan, a town where hundreds of children died in the local middle school, three parents told Reuters by phone.

"I feel there's too much control," said one of them, Zhou Liangping. "We just wanted to gather and remember our babies."

(Writing and additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Hanwang; Editing by Nick Macfie and Dean Yates)