China ? Tears of grief and anger mixed with smoke from ritual fires lit on the ruins of Xinjian Primary School on Sunday, as hundreds of parents commemorated the deaths of their children and pleaded for the government to punish those responsible for the building’s collapse in last month’s earthquake.

But for the parents, placing blame is a complex matter. Most of the dozens of schools that collapsed in the quake, killing an estimated 9,000 children, were built more than a decade ago, with multiple layers of government and private companies involved in their construction. And although government officials have announced investigations, they have emphasized the need to look for lessons learned, not the pursuit of wrongdoers.

Nearly three weeks after the tragedy, Xinjian parents say they are unaware of any official investigating team visiting the site to examine the rubble, still piled in a courtyard surrounded by other buildings, every one of which remains standing.

Lawyers said they doubted there would be many criminal convictions, despite the emotions surrounding child deaths, especially in a country where families are generally limited to having only one.

Xinjian was like many schools built in rural China in the late 1980s and 1990s, when local officials rushed to fulfill a central government mandate to provide nine years of compulsory education. There were not nearly enough buildings to house classrooms, and there wasn’t nearly enough money to build them.