Japan determined to reopen schools

[malaise]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42577510/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
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The tsunami killed 74 of the 108 students at Okawa Elementary School and all but one of the dozen teachers. The main building is ripped open, with trees jammed into second-floor classrooms, and the gym and playground have been reduced to muddied concrete foundations.

Classes start in a week.

All along Japan's battered northeastern coast, schools have been heavily damaged or converted to shelters, and families are without jobs, permanent homes or cars. But the country is determined to move ahead with one of its rites of spring: the start of the school year in April, even as some parents and children grieve.

"I'm just not ready to think about school yet. They haven't even found my daughter," said Naomi Hiratsuka, who lost her child Koharu, a sixth grader at Okawa Elementary, and has a younger one entering first grade.


An unidentified mother who lost her children stands in front of Okawa Elementary School devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan.
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