POGGIO PICENZA, Italy - Children toting knapsacks entered three "classrooms" erected in a blue tent city Thursday, a symbolic return to normalcy for some of the youngest victims of Italy's earthquake.

Inside, desks were arranged in rows as school reopened in Poggio Picenza, a few miles (kilometers) from the hard-hit city of L'Aquila, for the first time since the April 6 temblor.

The children were kept away from the media, but Sky TG24 television interviewed one fourth grader who said she was thrilled to go back since she had missed school. "I'm happy," said the youngster, who wasn't identified. "I missed my friends and teachers."

Middle school teacher Liberata Marchi said most of the year's school work had already been completed before the quake struck. But she stressed the need for classes to continue.

"Being together, playing with other children, letting them have fun, this is important," she said.

Some volunteers started lessons Wednesday in another tent city, but Thursday's opening in Poggio Picenza marked the official restart of the school year for victims of the 6.3-magnitude quake, which killed 294 people and destroyed thousands of buildings in central Italy's Abruzzo region.

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the school opening was a "small but important sign" that normalcy was returning and that it could help the children overcome the trauma of having lost friends or relatives in the temblor.

"We are confronting a strong trauma that affects adults but children even more," she said at the camp. "So at this time, more than teaching single subjects, school has the job of helping the children overcome trauma."

Some 30 lower- and middle-school students showed up for class in the three classrooms outfitted inside the tents, said Poggio Picenza Mayor Nicola Menna, himself a tent resident since the quake.

He said two of the village's students weren't there: they were among the five Poggio Picenza residents killed in the quake. Some others left the area with their families and are staying at hotels along the coast, he said, his voice hoarse from living in the cold for over a week.

Civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso noted that Thursday's start was only a "partial reopening" and that it would still take time for other schools to get under way, either in tent cities or in buildings deemed safe enough to house students.

Gelmini insisted that none of the children would lose the school year as a result of the quake and said she had signed a decree allowing quake victims who had relocated to enroll in any school across the country.

Of the 55,000 people displaced by the quake, an estimated 33,000 are living in the 100-plus tent cities erected in and around L'Aquila and the 26 towns and villages hit by the quake.

Bertolaso said an estimated 20,000 people probably won't be able to return to their homes because they are so damaged, and will need continued assistance through the summer at least.

Speaking on RAI state television, he said the remainder are believed to be living in tents or hotels because they are afraid of returning home while aftershocks continue, even though their homes are habitable.

Italy's interior minister has estimated rebuilding will cost at least euro12 billion (about $16 billion).

Officials have urged vigilance to prevent organized crime from infiltrating the rebuilding effort. Anti-mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso on Thursday proposed making a list of "clean" construction companies who would organize the effort.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)