About 600 schoolchildren are unaccounted for in northern Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts, which were hit hardest by the powerful landslide and devastating floods on August 26, sources said, The Kathmandu Post reports.

As a result of the disaster, 12 schools were completely destroyed there, and 10 other educational institutions were seriously damaged. In addition, 22 teachers and staff from those schools are also listed as missing.

Surya Bahadur Khatri, head of the Nuwakot Education Development and Coordination Unit, said that authorities are doing everything possible to search for them, but search operations are being hampered by communication problems, too.

Navaraj Sapkota, school inspector of the Bidur Municipality’s education unit, “The situation on the ground is deeply distressing.”

“In some cases, we have located surviving parents who cannot find their children, while in other instances, surviving students are searching for missing parents,” Sapkota added.