About 15 children’s backpacks lie torn apart in the rubble – pink, blue and orange bags with books spilling out of them.
Spiderman toys and letters of the alphabet are scattered among broken chairs, tables and garden slides at the remains of this preschool destroyed by the huge earthquake that hit Myanmar on Friday.
It is in the town of Kyaukse, about 40km (25 miles) south of Mandalay, one of the areas hit hardest by the 7.7 magnitude quake that killed at least 2,000 people.
Kywe Nyein, 71, weeps as he explains that his family are preparing to hold the funeral of his five-year-old granddaughter, Thet Hter San.
He says her mother was having lunch when the devastating earthquake began. She ran to the school, but the building had collapsed completely.
The little girl’s body was found about three hours later. “Fortunately, we got our beloved’s body intact, in one piece,” he says.
Locals say there were about 70 children, aged between two and seven, at the school on Friday, learning happily. But now there is little left except a pile of bricks, concrete and iron rods.
The school says 12 children and a teacher died, but locals believe the number is at least 40 – that is how many were in the downstairs section that collapsed.
Residents and parents are distraught. People say the whole town came to help with the rescue work and several bodies were retrieved on Friday. They describe mothers crying and calling out the names of their children long into the night.
Now, three days later, the site is quiet. People look at me with grief etched on their faces.-BBC
