Officials who are believed to bear some responsibility in relation to school collapses that killed thousands of students in the May 12 earthquake have pledged greater efforts to investigate why many schools crumbled while nearby buildings stayed erect.

"Seeking truth is more important than losing face," said Lin Qiang, vice inspector of the Sichuan provincial educational department. He requested the province's organizing committee for the Olympic torch relay to disqualify him as a torch bearer.

"As an educational administrator, I bear special, though not direct, responsibility towards those innocent children and their parents and relatives. I feel profoundly apologetic to them. So I have to reject the honor of relaying the Olympic torch as atonement."

Lin was among the first educational officials to arrive on the scene after the magnitude 8.0 quake erupted beneath Wenchuan County.

At the ruins of a collapsed building of the Beichuan Middle School, he saw parents crying and digging for their buried children with their bare hands, which struck his conscience.

The five-story building was destroyed almost instantly and about 1,300 students and teachers are believed to have died in their classrooms.

"Society should assume responsibility for the school collapses and the educational sectors should come first," Lin told local newspapers.