One Month After

From Yahoo! News
2 hours, 18 minutes ago (extracts only)

South Asia Grieves One Month After Tsunami
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

In Indonesia, where at least 96,000 died, there were no government or religious events to mark the day. Instead, officials said a proper remembrance was to send children back to school for the first official day of class since the tragedy.

Many students in ravaged Aceh province, however, returned to find their schools filled with mud and debris, with books, computers and other materials strewn everywhere. And many of their friends and teachers were gone forever.

Alqausar, a 6-year-old boy with neatly parted hair and a Power Rangers bag, arrived at school with his mother and wondered about his best friend, Andi. After about two hours of glancing repeatedly at the school gate, it hit him.

"I don't think he's coming," he whispered.

Only six of his class of 43 showed up. Out of the 600 enrolled at SD Kartika primary school, just 260 returned Wednesday. The rest are presumed dead.

At another school, English teacher Roslina Ramli — who lost four children to the tsunami — was one of 25 teachers who came to school. Before the tsunami the faculty was 75 strong.

"I have to put on a brave face," said Roslina. "Teachers are supposed to give the students strength and guidance but it will be hard."

In one classroom, workers doing a last-minute clean up found a body Wednesday while shoveling out thick mud.

The government estimates that 700 to 1,100 schools in the province were destroyed and 1,750 primary school teachers were dead or missing. Nearly 180,000 students have no schools to go to, Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab said.

One month on, the full death toll from the massive earthquake and the tsunami it spawned is still unknown — and probably never will be. Workers still discover bodies daily, and many more victims were washed out to sea.

Differing government tallies in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the two hardest hit countries, have put the total number of dead in 11 countries between 144,000 and 178,000. As many as 147,000 people are missing — many of them presumed dead — raising the possibility that more than 300,000 died...