Chinese official in quake zone kills self

BEIJING — An official whose 7-year-old son was killed in last year’s massive earthquake in Sichuan province committed suicide on Monday, state media and the local government said.

Feng Xiang, vice director of the publicity department of Beichuan county, hung himself around 2 a.m. (1800 GMT Sunday) in his home, according to the Sichuan news Web site, which is overseen by the provincial government.

The notice said his death is under investigation and it’s not immediately clear what triggered the suicide.

A man who answered the telephone at the Beichuan publicity department confirmed the news but said he did not have any details.

State media reported the suicides of at least two other officials from the quake zone last year, citing stress and depression.

Feng’s son was in class at the Qushan Primary School in Beichuan’s county seat, which was destroyed when the magnitude-7.9 quake struck on May 12. Some 7,000 classrooms collapsed in the temblor while other nearby buildings remained standing.

Grieving parents blame shoddy construction and official corruption but the government attributes it to the strength of the quake, which razed large swaths of the mountainous Sichuan province and left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing. It has refused to release official numbers of dead students, and no one has been publicly held accountable.

The final entry in Feng’s blog, titled “Many Ifs,” was written about an hour before he killed himself and contains good-byes to his family and friends in the event of his death. He was 33.

“I have no way of being happy. There’s no way to understand the depth of my sadness,” says the heading on the blog. It is filled with photos of his son grinning with Feng. In one photo, the child’s face is covered with cream as he eats cake off a plate.

“If I die one day, it will be a happy event for me, my son,” Feng wrote. “I will let your mother scatter my ashes under the tree at Qushan and then I can accompany you forever. I will never leave you or let you go.”

The official Xinhua News Agency said Feng worked hard at disaster relief work and was promoted to his post in June. He also attended a training course for post-quake reconstruction, which included a session on mental health, Xinhua said.