PESHAWAR: Showing the severity of devastation caused by the Monday`s earthquake, the initial assessment made by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Department reveals that around 813 schools in nine of the quakestricken districts were extensively or partially damaged.

While the federal and provincial governments are yet to rebuild most of the government schools damaged in the devastating earthquake a decade ago, this new catastrophe has increased the problems for both the governments.

Amid reports of damage done to high rise buildings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Monday`s earth-quake again played havoc with the government schools as 813 of them were reported fully and partially damaged in nine districts.

Sources said that the number of damaged schools would definitely increase with the completion of data compilation in the entire province.

Initial reports compiled by the Elementary and Secondary Education Department states that 110 schools were extensively damaged and 703 partially in KP. They said that the education department had ordered all the district education officers (DEOs) to compile the data of affected schools and report it to the education secretariat.

The sources said that most of the damaged schools so far were for boys, as the female district education officers had not completed the damage assessment in their respective districts. Schools in most parts of Malakand division remained closed on Tuesday to avoid casualties in the expected aftershocks.

They said that a total of 3,669 schools and colleges were exten-sively damaged in the 2005 earthquake. Of those, only 1,605 educationalinstitutions have been reconstructed so far by the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority.

In the absence of proper buildings,thousands ofstudents ofthese schools have been getting education in makeshift tents or small rented buildings for the last 10 years, according to an educationist. Also, the students of many other such schools have been getting education under the open sky.

The recent earthquake left 16 government schools extensively damaged and 80, including 16 for girls, partially damaged in Swat. In Shangla, which is the worst-affected district, the number of fully damaged schools is 23 besides nine partially damaged.

According to data gathered so far by the education department, the earthquake has left 45 schools fully damaged and 180 partially in Dir Upper; 15 schools fully and 19 partially damaged in Chitral; eightfully and 19 partially damaged in Mansehra; two schools fully and 214 partially damaged in Lower Dir; one school fully and 54 partially damaged in Battagram; and 100 and 29 schools partially damaged in Abbottabad and Peshawar, respectively.

A senior official in the education department told Dawn that all the district education officers had been asked to examine buildings of the schools in their districts as soon as possible. `All the damaged schools would also be examined through engineers of the communication and works department to seek their opinion about the shaken buildings,` he said.

He said that engineers of the C&W department were the relevant officials to declare the status of the affected schools whether they were fit for use or not. He said that a meeting had been convened at the education secretariat here on Wednesday (today) to discuss the post-earthquake situation of the af fected schools.