Five children suffocate in garbage bin (2)

"We are waiting for their relatives to claim the bodies, but so far no one has shown up," the staff member said Sunday afternoon.

The city's public security bureau declined to comment when reached Sunday.

A Web user named Li Yuanlong posted four photos and some details related to the death in an article on the online forum kdnet.net on Saturday.

The garbage bin, around 1.5 meters long and 1.3 meters wide with a cover on top, is designed to prevent smells from being released. "It is said that they were trying to keep warm by shutting the cover at night, and were killed by a lack of oxygen," Li told the Global Times Sunday.

Nearby residents said they had seen the boys living and playing at a nearby construction site. "These children had stayed in a makeshift tent built of a tarpaulin, a wooden board and bricks for days," local residents were quoted by the Beijing News as saying.

Wan Daqiang, a lawyer specializing in child protection from the Beijing Shangquan Law Firm, told the Global Times that both these boys' parents and local officials are responsible for the tragedy.

The temperature in the city plunged to a low of 6 C Thursday night, and the city is around 200 kilometers away from the provincial capital, Guiyang.