The United States will train 30,000 teachers and build 50 schools in quake affected areas of Pakistan, the U.S ambassador said on Sunday, the first anniversary of an earthquake that killed 73,000 people, Reuters reported. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker made the announcement during the inauguration by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of the first school built by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Dadar village in North West Frontier Province. "The school buildings are the hardware and they have to have the software to go with it and that means the teachers," Crocker said while announcing plans to build 50 schools and train 30,000 teachers in Frontier province and Pakistani Kashmir. The quake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan, 1,500 in Indian Kashmir, and left about 3.5 million homeless. The education sector was particularly badly hit, 67 percent of schools and colleges in Pakistan's quake zone were destroyed or partially damaged, and 853 teachers and staff were killed. The quake struck at a time when classrooms were full, and some 18,000 pupils died in the catastrophe.
