Pupils gathered in prayer yesterday at a secondary school in Britain which was due to be twinned with one in Kashmir where up to 1,000 children are thought to have died.
Park View School in Alum Rock, Birmingham, was in the process of setting up internet links with an orphan school in Muzaffarabad which is thought to have been destroyed in the earthquake.
Representatives of a charitable foundation organising the link-up yesterday visited the West Midlands school to give the students an assembly about the twinning.
The event went ahead despite the tragedy, with youngsters shown pictures of pupils and buildings thought to have been destroyed.
Monzoor Hussain, a teacher at Park View, said: "We were going to twin with the school and were sending out a temporary building and internet facilities so students could chat to their fellow students through the net.
"Pupils were told on Monday that the pictures they were being shown of children and classrooms and the playground no longer existed, that the buildings had been flattened.
"This has had a very big effect on the pupils."
Mr Hussain said all 600 students at the school, more than 90 per cent of whom have family connections with the area, had assembled outside to pray for those affected.
He said collection boxes were being sent home with the children to raise funds to help the aid effort.
