Schools reopen in key Myanmar city

At Middle School No. 1 in this suburb, classes resumed in a building where strips of rusted corrugated iron roofing hung precariously overhead. The storm's winds also shattered windows, punched holes in the walls and, according to one teacher, knocked the building off its foundations, so it will eventually have to be rebuilt.

"I am worried about the rain. If the rains get inside the school, the children will get sick," said San Aye, the mother of a 12-year-old.

Still, she said she supported the decision to start school because she thought any delay would hurt the students academically -- a widespread concern in a country where education is highly valued and primary school enrollment rate is about 80% for both boys and girls, according to UNICEF.

The school was one of at least 4,100 damaged or destroyed, the U.N. agency said.

The May 2-3 storm, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing, struck during a break in classes. The government delayed the June 2 start of the new term for a number of schools in the worst-hit areas.

Khin Yir, a teacher from the northern Yangon suburb of Hlaing Thar Yar, said she believed it was a "bad choice" to reopen schools so soon.

The storm's 120-mph winds ripped the roofs off two of the buildings at her junior high and driving rains caused flooding, she said. She asked that the school not be named, for fear of government reprisals for talking to a reporter.

"We teachers tried to salvage what we could, but the rain damaged everything. . . . We haven't gotten any new supplies," Khin Yir said.