China plans to improve the ability of schools to withstand earthquakes by revising a law in the wake of May's devastating quake that killed thousands of pupils, state media said Friday.
The standards of earthquake-resistant design of densely-populated buildings such as schools and hospitals were to be improved under draft amendments of the Earthquake Precaution and Disaster Relief Law, the China Daily said.
The draft was submitted on Thursday for legislators' review, which was postponed from June due to the magnitude-8.0 earthquake that rocked China's southwest on May 12, leaving nearly 90,000 people dead or missing, it reported.
Around 7,000 schools collapsed in the earthquake, often while neighbouring buildings stood intact, leading to the death of thousands of children and causing huge anger among grieving parents.
"(The earthquake) has revealed new problems in earthquake precaution and relief," Chen Jianmin, head of the China Earthquake Administration, told legislators Thursday, according to the report.
