Quake parents mourn one mounth on

BEICHUAN, China (Reuters) - Anguished parents on Thursdaymarked one month since China's devastating earthquake,demanding answers about flattened schools and beggingforgiveness from dead children buried under the rubble.

In a sign of political tensions in the quake-hit area,police expelled volunteers and apparently detained a localdissident who had offered to support the grieving families.

Two dozen parents gathered around concrete shards andtwisted steel at what was a Beichuan school, one of manytoppled by the quake even as government offices and homesnearby stayed upright. Poor construction work is suspected as areason for the collapse of the schools.

A mother burned incense, ceremonial funeral money and apile of her late daughter's clothes on the rubble mound, whileother parents wailed apologies at children crushed under theruins.

"Your mother is so sorry for this," cried the middle-agedmother of one girl, Chen Ya. "No. It was me. I'm so sorry,"said Chen's grandmother.

The parents' laments jarred with government efforts to passthe one-month date without major ceremony, focusing instead onrebuilding and messages of determined patriotic unity.

Few families in hard-hit parts of Sichuan province in thenation's southwest escaped losses among those killed in the May12 quake -- close to 70,000 according to the latest count, withmany thousands missing and likely dead.

But the thousands of crushed children have become the mostpolitically charged legacy of the disaster, distilling publicanger about corruption and lax regulation blamed for shoddyschool buildings.

"They said this building was strong and quake-proof, butwhen we saw it, the concrete was like talcum powder and thesteel was as thin as noodles," said Mu Qibing, whose17-year-old son was killed along with some 1,200 other pupils.

Police later moved in to heavily restrict access to thearea but did not clash with a crowd of parents, locals said.

In the night, the parents met local officials who heardtheir demands for an inquiry into the collapsed building andcomplaints about a memorial plaque the parents said police hadpulled down a day after they put in on a nearby hillside.

"We want justice for the children who perished," said oneof them, Chen Yanhuai, a father whose son died in the school."We don't understand why they treat us like the criminals whenwe are the victims."

The ruins of another school at Juyuan were also guarded bydozens of police, and the town 50 km (30 miles) from theprovince capital, Chengdu, was blocked by checkpoints.

A planned memorial by parents of hundreds of children whodied there was prevented by police who went door to doorwarning them to stay away, several parents said.

At a flattened school in Wufu, where 270 children died,about 80 parents held a brief memorial ceremony, some of themsaid.

"We gathered to remember our children and to pressure thegovernment for answers," said one of those parents, Shang Jun,whose son, Shang Xingping, died in the quake.

DETENTIONS AND EXPULSIONS

China has been seeking to present an image of determinedpatriotic stability in the face of the disaster. And in a signof the political tensions around the grieving parents,authorities detained a Sichuan dissident, according to peopleclose to him.

Huang Qi, who lives in Chengdu and runs a Web site criticalof the ruling Communist Party's restrictions on politicalrights, was bundled into a car on Tuesday night, said a locallawyer who only gave her surname, Xu, citing friends who werewith Huang.

"We believe Huang Qi was detained by state security in partfor offering support and publicity for the families of thechildren who perished and other victims," Zhang Guoting, asupporter of Huang who lives in Copenhagen, said by telephone.

Calls to the Sichuan police headquarters late on Thursdaywere not answered. Huang was previously jailed on politicalsubversion charges.

About 20 volunteers offering to help the grieving familiesin Beichuan were expelled from there on Thursday, and one saidpolice feared they would "stir up trouble".

"We came to offer non-political help, purely to help thedisaster victims," said one of the volunteers, Chen Dapeng, aBeijing-based author. "But police told us to leave because theyfear outsiders could stir up incidents around the memorialday."

(Editing by Caroline Drees)