Primary and middle school students in mudslide-battered Zhouqu County in northwest China's Gansu Province began their new semester Wednesday after the disaster claimed 1,447 lives on Aug. 8.

The students were supposed to start the new semester on Aug. 15, but the mudslide disrupted the plan since two schools were damaged and three others were used as resettlement areas. The new semester was postponed for ten days, said Dan Zhita, deputy chief of the provincial Education Department.

Students got their text books and school supplies for free Tuesday. "I got a school bag, tooth brush, tooth paste and towel," said Wang Jiahao, a pupil of No. 2 Primary School Tuesday.

Some students and teachers were killed in the mudslide. In No. 3 Junior High alone, four teachers and seven students were among the dead.

Zhouqu has two primary schools, two junior schools and one senior high school. The primary schools were damaged in the mudslide, but fortunately students were not attending lessons at the time as it occurred at night during the summer vacation.

Students of No.1 High School, the only senior high, will be transferred to Gansu's Lanzhou and Dingxi Cities and start the new semester on Sept. 1. And the school buildings will be used by pupils of the two primary schools, said Dan.

More than 1,700 mudslide evacuees previously residing at schools began to be relocated Wednesday to Shachuan Village, in the western part of the mudslides-leveled county.

The devastating mudslides which hit on Aug. 8 have claimed 1,447 lives with 318 people still missing as of Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2010)