"Now, our priority is to look for a place to move to and we still don't know when will we find somewhere," the 16-year-old Rita told The Jakarta Post Saturday.

She recalled that she was following the second lesson in her classroom on Wednesday afternoon when she saw the wall around her start to crack. Knowing that it was an earthquake, the eleventh-grader along with dozens of her friends fled to the safety of the school yard.

"I saw the school building shaking and I suddenly thought about my family at home," said Rita, who lives in Cikangkareng village, Cianjur, West Java.

After the earthquake, the school allowed the students to go home.

However, when Rita arrived at the nearest alley from her neighborhood, she saw nothing but a mountain of rocks and soil burying the entire neighborhood.

"My leg suddenly felt paralyzed because I couldn't even see the remains of any buildings," said Rita, who later found out that her eldest sister and 10-year-old nephew were killed in the tragedy.

While her parents are still in shock following the tragic lost, Rita said she was currently not thinking about returning to school.

Thirty kilometers east of the Cikangkareng village, Elisa, 10, has a different story.

Her school, SDN Simpang 2 elementary school in Sindangbarang subdistrict, resumed classes on Friday and the fifth-grader can see her friends studying from her makeshift tent, located only 100 meters away from the school.

"I had just bought a new bag and several books before the new school year, but those were are all gone after the quake demolished my house," she said.

Fifth-grader Ardi from Pangalengan, Bandung, said he had already missed school.

"But, how could this happen?" said the 11-year-old, whose school, located in front of a large tea plantation, was severely devastated by the powerful quake.

As well as killing dozens of people and displacing hundreds of thousands more, the 7.3-magnitude quake that jolted West Java on Wednesday afternoon has definitely paralyzed the education system in several of the most-effected parts of the province.

Data from the Bandung Crisis Center, for example, shows that 135 schools in the regency have been significantly damaged.

In other places, where the quake caused no or only minor damage, most parents are also still reluctant to let their children go to school due to safety concerns.

Iis Mislihah, a teacher at Cikamurang elementary school, Cianjur, said the teachers had to close the school on Saturday as many parents forbade their children from going to school following a wide spreading fear that a tsunami might follow the earthquake.

"I arrived a bit late at school this morning but only found 10 students coming," Iis said.

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