Only one child orphaned in China’s devastating earthquake this year has won adoption so far.

The process of finding new homes for 88 children whose parents have been confirmed dead or who have no relatives able to care for them has been hampered by bureaucratic red tape and by age-old prejudices against the disabled.

The revelation that adoptions of the children of victims from the earthquake was proceeding so slowly comes as the Chinese capital plays host to the Paralympics, which traditionally follows hard on the heels of the Olympic Games.

China has assigned enormous publicity to the Paralympics in the state-run media — part of an attempt to reduce traditional discriminations in a country where the disabled are kept out of sight usually.

Zhang Anyun, 10, lost both his parents in the earthquake on May 12 when their apartment collapsed under the force of the 8.0 magnitude tremor. The grandparents of the boy are more than 80 years old and cannot afford to support the child.

The child, from the Hanwang Central Primary School, which collapsed in one of the towns worst-hit by the earthquake, was adopted by a couple in the provincial capital of Chengdu. He was the first child to be adopted after the Government issued a list on August 23 of 88 orphans who were eligible because both parents had been confirmed dead or because they had no relatives able to care for them.

Li Boshan, an official of the bureau of civil affairs that is responsible for adoptions, said: “Zhang Anyun signed his name agreeing to be adopted after living with the couple for some time in Chengdu.”

Children aged 10 and over must give their own permission to be adopted.

“One reason for the slow response is that many of the orphans are handicapped," the state media said. Prospective parents had hesitated after learning that orphans had physical or other disabilities.

Most people also prefer to adopt children under the age of 6. Of the 88 children, only 28 are aged between 5 and 10 and 54 are between 10 and 14.

Officials said that 532 children lost their parents in the earthquake, which killed nearly 70,000 people and left 18,000 missing. Most of the children have been taken in by family members or guardians.

Adoption officials said that many of the earthquake orphans had physical or other injuries that constituted permanent disabilities.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said earlier that huge numbers of people in China had shown an interest in adopting the orphans, with 10,000 families registering in one province alone.

The ministry said at the time that priority would be given to parents who lost children in the earthquake. Many lost their only child born under the strict "one couple, one child" family planning policy.

As many as 10,000 children may have been killed in the earthquake. Many were crushed to death when their poorly built schools crumbled when the tremor struck in the early afternoon.

Officials have yet to issue a tally of how many children were killed in their classrooms, but they said last week that some school buildings may have been poorly built in the rush resulting from the Chinese economic boom.

Adoptions are not open to foreigner couples, including residents of the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau, and Taiwanese citizens. The ministry said that only childless Chinese couples over the age of 30 could be considered as adoptive parents.

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