By Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-16 07:01

DEYANG, Sichuan: Zhou Dexiang worked overtime to forget the greatest loss of his life: his wife and daughter.

But the 45-year-old deputy headmaster of Dongqi high school in Deyang could not fight his emotions while visiting the makeshift classrooms on Father's Day yesterday.

"My daughter used to call me 'Teacher Zhou' jokingly," he said. "I will never get to hear those naughty words again."

His wife Wang Maoni and 17-year-old daughter Zhou Wencao died when their school buildings in Hanwang collapsed in the May 12 earthquake.

Zhou Wencao was a student of Dongqi high school, while Wang used to teach in Dongqi technical secondary school.

Wang was outside the school when the quake struck but ran into the building to help the students flee. She was hit by a falling slab of concrete on her way out.

Zhou Dexiang was in the administrative building when the first tremors were felt. He rushed toward the building that housed the classrooms to ask the students to run out to safety.

But the building collapsed before all of them could do so, burying more than 200 of the about 800 students. Zhou and other teachers and students pulled out about 40 of the students from under the debris.

Five days later, Zhou found his daughter's body.

"Although she will never say 'Happy Father's Day' to me, I have so many students who are like my children," he said.

Zhou found his wife's body the day after the quake, though he had to dig with his hands through the debris of her school building for more than an hour. "She was only steps away from the door (and safety)," he said.

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