New Delhi – He has lost his parents, home and friends to the killer Cyclone Nargis yet Soe Thu, an 18 year old boy said he has not given up hope of going to school.

'I want to go to school," he said.

Soe Thu lived with his parents and brothers in Khit San village in Bogale Township of the Irrawaddy delta, before the cyclone struck and killed both his parents and brothers.

Soe Thu, who has completed his ninth-standard from the Bogale No.1 State High School, said he had gone back to his village to discuss with his family details of the next academic year.

"I was returning home to discuss about taking extra tuition for the 10th standard with my mother," he said, "But I found that my mother and all my family members had died when their boat sank."

Soe Thu, who is now sheltered in a Buddhist monastery in Bogale said, his family members were trying to escape the cyclone in a boat, but the strong waves and winds wrecked the boat and it sank.

Despite struggling for survival, Soe Thu said, "I still want to try hard to study."

Soe Thu, however, is not the only teenager, whose lives have been changed forever by the killer Cyclone Nargis that lashed Burma's Irrawaddy and Rangoon division on May 2 and 3.

According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, up to 90 percent of the schools have been damaged or destroyed by Cyclone Nargis, totaling some 3,000 primary schools and affecting more than 500,000 students in the Irrawaddy delta and Rangoon division.

But UNICEF said it plans to set up temporary tents for school children and provide "child friendly spaces" for a safe and secure environment in many of the resettlement areas.

But there are too many children still in of need life-saving relief in Burma, says the UNICEF report.

Meanwhile the government of Burma on Tuesday announced that reopening of schools in seven townships in cyclone hit Irrawaddy division have been postponed by a month, while in the rest of the country schools will open in June.

But for some children, schools and education is no longer a priority as their main concern now is survival.

"I need only food now," Kyaw Zin Htun, another teenager, who survived the cyclone while all his seven family members including his parents in Bogale town were killed.

Kyaw Zin Htun, an 18 year old and a cripple since birth said he earns his living now by collecting crabs on the river shores and school no longer attracts him.

"Now I do not know what to do," he said. "All I know is I need food."

(Additional reporting by Huaipi and Editing by Mungpi)