On Monday, May 12, 2008, a catastrophic earthquake leveled the Sichuan Province in rural China. Nearly 70,000 people died, 10,000 of whom were children. Now, their grieving parents want justice from their government. This 40-minute verité documentary visits with these parents in the days after the disaster as they unite in a festering anger, attempting to understand why children were allowed in such poorly constructed buildings, how government resources might have been misdirected by local officials–and why many of those same officials failed to respond to parents’ concerns in the hours and days after the tragedy. China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province premieres on Thursday, May 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT – four days before the one-year anniversary of the tragedy. See the schedule of when the document shows on HBO here.

Immediately after the earthquake, Ming Xia, professor of political science at the College of Staten Island went to his hometown as part of a film crew for the HBO Documentary, China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears Of Sichuan Province. You can see a photo essay is in the words of Ming Xia, and captures his experiences while working on the film here.

China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province Trailer