Thousands of schools destroyed
2005-10-13 21:06
Peshawar - About 8 000 schools were damaged or totally destroyed in Pakistan's northwestern province by the massive earthquake last weekend, the provincial education minister said on Thursday.
Fazle Ali said most of the quake-ravaged institutions in five districts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) were primary-level schools.
"Hundreds of children still remain buried under the debris and hundreds of teachers are also feared to have died," Ali said.
"About 400 girl students are still trapped, only 40 bodies have been recovered during the past three days at the government school in Bakot" in NWFP, the minister said.
He said new schools would have to be built because the partially damaged schools could not reopen.
The quake, which struck on Saturday, measured 7.6 on the Richter Scale and devastated parts of NWFP and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, killing more than 25 000 people and injuring another 63 000.
About 2.5 million people have been made homeless.
- AFP