PHOTOS: Mementos of fallen children recovered from the rubble in quake-hit Myanmar

Four weeks after a devastating earthquake in central Myanmar, a local charity has retrieved dust-covered backpacks, water bottles and lunch boxes from the rubble of “Bright Kids” pre-school in Sagaing city and returned those belongings to tearful parents.

Bright Kids had about 20 children attending when the 7.7 magnitude quake struck on March 28, killing more than 3,700 people. Seven children and one teacher died when the school collapsed.

myanmar-earthquake-school Workers retrieve children's belongings at a destroyed pre-school in Sagaing city, Myanmar, on April 24, 2025, four weeks after Myanmar's devastating earthquake. (Sai Thiha Naing via Facebook)

Nam Latt Social Relief Association helped clear the building on Thursday. Children’s belongings were recovered from heaps of masonry and twisted rebar as a backhoe clawed through the wreckage.

The association’s Sai Thiha Naing wrote on social media that today was a day when all the team members shed tears and helped the children who died.

The bodies of the children had been recovered a few hours after the quake when rescuers accessed the crushed interior of the school through a hole in a brick wall at the base of the building.

According to state media, more than 2,500 schools were damaged in the earthquake.

Sagaing was near the epicenter. It is a region that’s also been a focus of bitter fighting between Myanmar’s military rulers and anti-junta forces since a 2021 coup.