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GUNUNG SITOLI, Indonesia — Thousands of students on Nias island turned up at schools Monday only to find that classes could not be held because most school buildings were damaged from the powerful earthquake that hit a week ago and many teachers had not turned up.
Also Monday, Australia said it would press on with its humanitarian mission on Nias despite the loss of a navy helicopter in a crash that killed nine people.
The 30-year-old Australian Sea King navy helicopter hit the ground nose first and burst into flames on Saturday while flying from its base, hospital ship HMAS Kanimbla, to a remote village in Nias.
“They gave their lives trying to help other people. The mission will continue. It is important we honor their memory,” Cmdr. George McGuire, the commander of the Australian relief mission on Nias, said Monday.
Helicopters grounded
The Australian navy, however, grounded its remaining fleet of aging Sea King helicopters Monday pending an investigation into the tragedy.
The bodies of the victims — six navy and three air force personnel — were being sent back to Australia, McGuire, who is also the captain of Kanimbla, told The Associated Press.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in Australia on his first visit as his nation’s leader, announced the dead and the two survivors will be awarded medals of honor.
Sorrowful return to school
At the Santo Xaverius school in the main town of Gunung Sitoli, about 100 students showed up for classes on Monday, less than a quarter of the student body. They stared at the three story concrete buildings lying crumpled on the ground.
“Everything is destroyed. We will have to move to another school nearby,” Father Dion Lamere, the school’s principal, told Reuters.
But he tried to cheer up the students, many wearing regular clothes instead of school uniforms because those had been lost when their homes were destroyed, saying he wanted classes to resume on Tuesday.
After they had all clasped their hands in prayer for the victims of the earthquake, Lamere told the students four of their schoolmates had died. Some had been seriously hurt, and had had their arms and legs amputated, he added.
One girl who lost a friend sobbed.
Lely Djuhari, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said the government had asked UNICEF to help get schools reopened within two weeks of the quake.
She said UNICEF was getting structural engineers to come and assess if those buildings still standing were safe. UNICEF would also provide schools in a box — kits of school equipment and books — and counseling for pupils.
Death toll rises
The 8.7 magnitude quake that hit last Monday came as the region was still recovering from the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 126,000 people in Indonesia, mostly in the nearby province of Aceh.
Last week’s quake hit Nias and a string of other islands off Sumatra. At least 647 people including 616 on Nias have been confirmed killed, national police spokesman Col. Zainuri Lubis said Monday, raising the death toll by about 100 people.
He said the damaged or collapsed buildings in Nias, a predominantly Christian island, include 6,736 houses, 123 shops, 16 mosques, 105 churches and 147 schools.
Like the schools, much of this town of around 30,000 people remains at a standstill. Many shops that survived the massive tremor are still closed. Simple wooden coffins have been placed in badly damaged areas, waiting for more bodies to be pulled out of the rubble.
Fresh aftershocks
Fresh aftershocks hit Nias overnight, underscoring the fear of many here that another big earthquake is coming.
Maruliasi Kristof Siallagan, an Indonesian language teacher at the SMP Negeri 1 school which has 972 pupils, said some parents had taken their children off the island in fear of another large quake.
“We felt we could reopen in one week, but it turns out there are continual aftershocks. We will have to tell the students we are not brave enough to reopen yet,” said Siallagan, estimating 60 percent of the classrooms were unusable.
“We have to wait for the aftershocks to stop. The risk is too great.”
More than 100 students had arrived on Monday. Some looked inside classrooms where broken desks and torn books littered the floor.
No one had been to inspect the school’s structural soundness, Siallagan added.
Like their colleagues in the tsunami-hit Indonesian province of Aceh to the north, students here said they wanted to return to school soon so they could get on with our lives.
“Our future is our school. Of course we want them to reopen,” said Yupinta Tel, 15, a student SMP Negeri 1.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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