BEIJING — Premier Zhu Rongji on Thursday blamed a man with mental problems for an explosion that destroyed a schoolhouse, killing 41 students and teachers in rural southeastern China.
But the father of an 11-year-old son killed in the blast said officials were lying. Zhang Chenggen said the school in the village of Fang Lin in Jiangxi province had forced children to manufacture fireworks to cover its budget and benefit teachers.
"Everybody knows it is caused by the fireworks. The government is trying to cover the facts. Please do not believe them," Zhang said by telephone.
Zhang said thousands of people had demonstrated Wednesday outside the school to demand punishment of those responsible. Most of the dead were students, but some were teachers.
The disaster, which came the week of the annual meeting of China's national legislature, is extremely embarrassing for Chinese leaders, whose reputations have already suffered from a string of fatal building collapses and fires.
Police erected roadblocks around the village to keep out reporters and detained at least three who tried to reach the remote mountainous area. State television and major newspapers have not reported on the disaster.
State media in Jiangxi were ordered Wednesday to withhold information from foreign reporters, according to a newspaper employee in Nanchang, the provincial capital.
Police experts were combing through the wreckage of the school where the explosion Tuesday morning ripped down walls and left a heap of books, bricks and furniture. Exposed inner walls had Chinese flags and patriotic slogans still neatly pinned up.
About 190 people were inside at the time of the blast. Witnesses have said that 37 of the dead were students and the other four were teachers, though no official breakdown has been given.
Zhu denied widespread reports that fireworks manufacturing in the school was to blame. Speaking to Hong Kong television, he said the explosion was caused by a man who carried a bag of fireworks into the school. Zhu said the man died in the explosion.
"According to initial investigation, he suffered from mental problems, but we'll continue with the investigation," Zhu said.
"But it's certain that it's not a case of the primary school renting out space for the storage for the raw materials."
A government newspaper quoted a teacher saying a 65-year-old man set off a bag of explosives on a student's desk during class.
The teacher, whom the Liao Shen Evening Paper identified only by the surname Deng, said the man refused repeated demands to leave the classroom, then used a lighter to ignite a fuse.
"I shouted for the students to run, then heard a huge noise and I don't know anything else," Deng was quoted as saying.
Zhang said his son, Zhang Yu, and other third- and fourth-grade students had been required since 1998 to spend half the school day assembling fireworks.
Part of the profits subsidized school expenses and the rest went to local officials, Zhang said. He said children were ordered not to tell their parents about their work, and those who did were punished by being forced to kneel on the classroom floor.
Another man reached by telephone said his 9-year-old child, who died in the blast, told him students had been assembling fireworks for three years. The man, who identified himself only as Mr. Ding, declined to discuss how the business operated.
According to Zhang, an officials trying to calm angry relatives in Wednesday's protest said the school principal and other officials have been detained for questioning. The government gave the family of each dead child $3,660 for funeral expenses, Zhang said.
The town, about 480 miles southwest of Shanghai, is known for its fireworks industry. The official China Daily newspaper said numerous fireworks factories operate in the school's area — one about a mile away.
Gunpowder was found in the rubble, the China Daily said. A local fire official, who gave only his surname, Chen, told The Associated Press the debris was littered with firecracker wrapping papers.
The Yangcheng Evening News said Wednesday that students were inserting fuses in fireworks at the time of the blast.
UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, expressed "outrage" in a statement Wednesday at reports that children were working. In response, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Thursday that the government is investigating.
"To hire child labor is a serious illegal criminal act in China" that will be "severely punished," Zhu said.