In the Tsunami’s Aftermath, Schools Reopen And Rebuild

Amid the devastation inflicted by a tsunami the day after Christmas, a school reopened in Galle last week, a small but vital sign that the community in Sri Lanka is determined to seek recovery and normalcy.

The Sudarma School is about 100 meters from the beachfront in the southern fort-city that was hit head-on by the giant wave on Dec. 26, according to Martin Dawes, a regional spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, who visited there last week, making a delivery of school supply kits.

Only a day before school reopened, he said, local authorities were trying to get an accurate number of the dead and missing. They were talking to parents who had brought in photographs of children. Officials were estimating that as many as 350 children may have died, out of...