Edward Wong reports in the New York Times, from Sangzao:
The students lined up row by row on the outdoor basketball courts of Sangzao Middle School in the minutes after the earthquake. When the head count was complete, their fate was clear: all 2,323 were alive.
Ye Zhiping, the school’s principal, knew the building was shoddy, so he pressed the county government for $58,000 to upgrade it. If he hadn’t, he said, “I would be the one responsible.”
Parents covered in blood and dust hugged them and cried. So did the school principal, Ye Zhiping.
“That was the single most joyful thing,” he said.
Given that some 10,000 other children were crushed in their classrooms during the devastating quake on May 12, the survival of so many students in Sangzao counts as a minor miracle.
Students and parents credit that to the man they call Angel Ye.