Tian Shaolin stepped into the reproduction service station in the temporary shelters for the Beichuan County, which was almost totally destroyed by the May 12 earthquake, and asked the consultant a question.

"My wife had a Caesarean operation last time. Can she give birth to another child?"

The consultant said "yes if it's already been three years".

Tian, 34, was a vegetable vendor in Qushan Township of the Beichuan County in the mountainous area before the devastating 8.0-magnitude quake, which killed nearly 70,000 people, with another more than 17,000 still missing. His five-year-old son died in the kindergarten when rocks and stones rolled down and smashed the building.

"I still haven't find my son's body," he said.

He said his wife was in a depression after their son's death.

"Every time she heard the sound of the cartoon 'Tom and Jerry' from next door, she broke into tears at once. It's our son's favorite," he said.

Two months ago, local family planning officials came to ask whether they would like to have another child. Tang signed the form.

"Maybe it will be a little better if we can have another child," he said.

According to documents issued by the earthquake relief headquarters of the State Council and the commission right after the quake, families whose children were killed or disabled in the disaster should be considered in accordance with local population and family planning regulations.

A new regulation was enacted by the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress in late July, stipulating that the parents who lost their single child, or have a disabled child because of the quake can bear another one.

In addition, remarried family after the quake with no more than two children can give birth to one child too, it said.

According to statistics from the Sichuan Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission, more than 10,000 families which had a single child or two children in accordance with the family planning law lost their children in the quake.

There have already been 802 couples in Beichuan signed up for the reproduction, according to Chen Changjun, director of the Beichuan population and family planning bureau.

They would be provided with free reproduction services, including counseling, guidance, health checkup, sterilization-reversing operations and the implementation of artificial reproduction technology by local service stations, or by experts sent by the national family planning authorities if local stations could not do them, Chen said.

However, "about half of the women were at the age of between 35-40, when they will come across more problems than the childbearing-age women," he said.

"Our principle is trying our best to meet their demand," Chen said.

China's "one-child" policy, which has been in effect for more than three decades as a policy and then a law, has prevented an estimated 400 million births. It limits most urban couples to one child and rural couples to two.

Although having signed the form, Tian Shaolin said they would not do that before the new county was finished next September.

"We just aren't in the mood while everything still isn't back to normal," he said.

His friend Li Minghong, who lost his 17-year-old daughter and 16-year-old step-daughter, went even further. Li's ex-wife died in a car accident last year. Li said he and his wife would not have another child.

"I named my daughter 'Panpan', (meaning 'to expect' in English), expecting her to walk out of the mountain and to be successful, but now..." he could not go on.

"I just can't bear the agony of losing my family any more," hesaid with his face deeply buried in his hands.

(Xinhua News Agency November 13, 2008)