China considers post-quake plan as parents protest

WUFU, China (Reuters) - Top Chinese officials considered on Tuesday a plan to rebuild earthquake-ravaged parts of the country's southwest while protests by grieving parents and dangerous quake lakes cast a shadow over relief efforts.

The earthquake centered in Sichuan province has killed 69,107 people and displaced more than 15 million, according to official figures on Tuesday. The death toll is likely to rise with 18,230 still listed as missing.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has nonetheless vowed to move quickly to rebuild towns and villages devastated by the May 12 quake. He and other officials met to discuss a reconstruction plan for the region, state television reported.

"As quickly as possibly restore agricultural production in the disaster area," the officials urged, also calling for rapid road repairs and reviving trade and services.

But protests by parents who lost children in schools destroyed during the quake also flared, underscoring the tensions that could erupt as grieving gives way to anger.

Many schools collapsed in the quake, killing more than 9,000 students and teachers according to figures compiled by Reuters.

Many parents blame shoddy buildings for the deaths, pointing to apartments and government offices that survived while nearby schools fell.

In Dujiangyan, a small city near the Sichuan province capital Chengdu, police prevented some 150 grieving parents from seeking to lodge a lawsuit over a collapsed middle school, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.

Officers dragged away sobbing mothers clasping pictures of children killed when a school building crumpled, the report said. It said the parents want to sue the school and its principal.

In the farming town of Wufu, angry parents kept vigil at the ruins of a school, demanding those responsible be punished.

Nearly every building withstood the earthquake -- except the three-storey Fuxin Number Two Primary School which collapsed, killing 129 children.

"We come here every day," said a woman named Zhang, whose 10-year-old daughter died under the rubble.

"The children are here. We want to keep the children company until there is a result."

WAITING FOR LAKE TO DRAIN

Troops and disaster officials have also been seeking to defuse threats from dangerous build-ups of water created by quake-caused landslides choking rivers.

The largest "quake lake" formed by China's most devastating earthquake in decades is not expected to start draining until Thursday due to a lack of rain, the government said.

Some 210,000 residents downstream of that lake at Tangjiashan have been evacuated to higher ground according to a contingency plan that foresees one third of the dam bursting.

Landslides caused by the May 12 quake have blocked rivers, forming more than 30 unstable "quake lakes" that threaten hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

In Yingxiu, thousands of rescuers have yet to find the wreckage of a military helicopter that crashed on May 31, after scrounging the area of high mountains and valleys near the quake's epicenter for three days.

There were 19 people aboard the helicopter, including 14 injured quake survivors and medical workers and five crew. It lost contact amid cloudy weather after encountering strong turbulence on its 64th quake relief mission.

TENT CITIES

Relief workers face a daunting task in offering food and shelter to the homeless, treating the tens of thousands of people still in hospital and rebuilding ravaged infrastructure, even as donations from home and abroad reached 42.4 billion yuan ($6.1 billion) on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction on Tuesday asked governments in the quake area to submit plans on the reconstruction of public buildings like schools and kindergartens by June 8, Xinhua news agency said.

Experts also began considering sites for a memorial to the quake victims, Xinhua reported.

To prepare for the memorial, the report said, officials have "started to gather items related to the earthquake, such as photos and the personal effects of the victims, including school bags".

($1=6.932 yuan)

(Writing by Guo Shipeng; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jerry Norton)