Authorities continue investigations after children across the country reported feeling unwell after playing on synthetic surfaces. Sun Xiaochen reports.

While excavators dismantled the synthetic surface at the Baiyunlu campus of Beijing No 2 Experimental Primary School on Sunday, a group of parents watched carefully, despite the noise of machinery, the swirling dust and the stench of plastic debris.

Like the surface of the playground, the parents' trust in the school and local educational authority has been shredded as a result of a recent health scare related to the facility, according to one parent, the mother of a fourth-grader, who preferred not to be named.