The Islamic republic's top national security official also announced the regime would be "seriously" studying moving the seat of government out of the quake-prone capital Tehran, amid fears of an impending catastrophe there.

With the help of the United Nations children's fund UNICEF and the Iranian Red Crescent, local officials gathered in tents and prefabricated buildings across the destroyed city of Bam for the grim task of gauging the full scale of the tragedy by registering surviving pupils and teachers.

The head of Kerman province's education department, Mohammad Taghi-Zadeh, told AFP an estimated 1,200 teachers and 10,000 pupils died when the quake struck before dawn on December 26.

At least 6,000 children had lost at least one parent, he said.

The overall death toll for the tragedy has been put at between 30,000 and

"For certain, the teachers and the pupils badly need psychological help because they are morally devastated. We are hoping to begin group counselling," explained Ali Zang-Abadi, head of education in Bam.

It was not clear when classes would begin, with emotions running high as children queued up in front of tents or shipping containers inside which class registers were laid out.

"I just found out that two of my classmates are gone," said Shima Delijani, 13, as she waited to register with her older brother at their collapsed school.

"I am devastated," she said, barely able to hold back her sobs. "But I'm happy the schools will reopen -- I am afraid of the aftershocks so I need to talk to people."

Elementary teacher Tahereh Farokhi-Nejad, who has been helping youngsters from deprived areas for the past 28 years, said she had lost at least one pupil.

"Out of the 14 pupils, I am sure at least one was killed. You cannot imagine how I feel to have lost them -- they were making such good progress," she said, explaining she had moved her own children to the nearby city of Kerman because each of the dozens of aftershocks made them "scream during the night."

Most survivors have been sleeping in tents outside the rubble of their homes since the quake hit, enduring freezing conditions and with few sanitary facilities.

Mehdi Jahangiri, director general of planning in Kerman province's governorate, said the survivors -- who number at least 50,000 -- would soon be moved to a network of large camps around the city as the job of clearing away the rubble and collecting the remaining dead bodies goes into full swing.

"We are preparing the ground for the survivors to move to five camps with the capacity for 15,000 families," he told AFP, saying the Iranian Red Crescent would be administering the camps.

Turkey has said it will provide 800 prefabricated houses within the next two days.

The United Nations said donations already amounted to 73.9 million dollars, and said it would launched a formal appeal for more funds from the international community on Thursday.

Jahangiri said that 14,900 family ration booklets had also been distributed so far.

Interior Minister Abolvahed Musavi-Lari was in Bam to oversee the massive relief and recovery operation, as well as the first steps to drawing up a comprehensive reconstruction plan -- expected to take about a month.

Iran hopes half the reconstruction cost, at the moment estimated to total at least 4,000 billion rials (400 million euros, 500 million dollars), will come from foreign donors.

Meanwhile Hassan Rowhani, a top cleric who heads the Supreme National Security Council, said the body would Saturday "seriously study the problem of moving the capital."

"The capital must be moved," he told national television, adding the proposal had been floating around since 1991 but had since failed to gain any momentum and the full cooperation of all government bodies.

The Iranian capital, which sprawls over 1,600 square kilometers (640 square miles) and is home to some 12 million people, straddles several major seismic fault lines.

Experts say a major earthquake can be expected in Tehran every 150 years. The last one occurred around 1830.

TERRA.WIRE