May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Scenes of devastation at schools destroyed by China's May 12 earthquake are prompting demands for investigations of how they were built.

``We cannot afford not to raise uneasy questions about the structural quality of school buildings,'' the state-owned China Daily newspaper said in an editorial yesterday. Shoddy compliance with building rules must be ``firmly'' dealt with, it said.

At least 2,000 children are missing and feared dead after their schools collapsed because of China's strongest earthquake in 58 years. The grief and anger among parents is especially acute because the population-control rules allow only one child per family.

``Schools weren't the only buildings that collapsed, but of course we care most about the schools,'' Luo Pingfei, vice minister of civil affairs, said at a news briefing May 13.

Schools are among the buildings most at risk in seismic zones, according to a 2004 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report. China introduced stricter building requirements since 1978 after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake in 1976 killed 250,000 people in northeastern China's Tangshan. The latest rules were imposed in 2001.

``China has very clear laws,'' said Chau Kam-tim, professor of geotechnical engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. ``Whether the local government or individuals implement them remains a question. Obviously, there's a problem.''

Rescues, Classes Resume

While some primary and middle schools in Chengdu, capital of the quake-stricken southwest Sichuan province, resumed classes yesterday, rescuers are still trying to find 900 children buried in the remains of Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan, near the epicenter of the 7.9-magnitude quake.

Only about 200 children escaped when the four-story building collapsed, and recovered bodies have been placed in minibuses serving as temporary morgues, according to the Hong Kong-based Standard newspaper.

``My child was only 15, he was my only hope,'' the report cited a crying mother as saying. ``What am I going to do without him?'' Other parents complained that the school, built 10 years ago, collapsed because contractors used shoddy materials. Nearby older buildings remain standing, the report said.

In nearby Mianyang, a city of more than 5 million, at least 1,000 students and teachers are dead or missing after Beichuan Middle School's main building collapsed, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Lack of Warning

An additional 200 children were buried in two schools in the township of Mianzhu, and several other schools have collapsed in Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality, Xinhua said.

``The China Earthquake Administration should die,'' someone identified as Moonlight City wrote on the Chinese-language Tianya online discussion Web site. ``Their job is to monitor the situation and make predictions. How come they don't have any preventive measures for such a big earthquake?''

The question was posed the day after the quake to Zhang Xiaodong, vice director and a researcher at the China Earthquake Networks Center, at a press briefing in Beijing.

``Everyone knows forecasting earthquakes is a big problem for the world,'' he said. ``Why? The inaccessibility of the earth's interior, the complex rhythm of the earthquakes and the low probability of a quake happening at any given time and place, are three factors.''

China's one-child policy, introduced by the world's most populous nation in the late 1970s, is applied more strictly in rural areas like those hit hardest by the earthquake, said James Sung, political scientist at the City University of Hong Kong.

``So the death of their child means their family line has been wiped out,'' Sung said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stephanie Wong in Hong Kong at swong139@bloomberg.net; Lee Spears in Beijing at lspears2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 14, 2008 12:01 EDT