BEIJING, May 24 (Reuters) - Nearly 12 percent of those killed in China's southwestern Sichuan province by the massive May 12 earthquake were students and teachers, crushed when their schools collapsed on top of them, the Beijing News reported on Saturday. The toll from the quake is already more than 55,000 and the newspaper said at least 6,581 of them were students and teachers, citing the head of the provincial education office Tu Wentao.

The quake damaged 13,451 schools, Tu said, and in addition to those killed, schools had registered 8,810 injured and 1,274 people still missing across the province by late Wednesday.

The tremor struck in the early afternoon when many children were at their desks or taking a nap, exacerbating the toll.

The government has already launched a probe into the huge numbers of school collapses that killed and buried thousands when many other buildings nearby remained standing.

The school deaths have fueled anger from parents who have accused authorities of cutting corners and failing to meet safety standards. Last week, the housing minister conceded that cost-cutting may have played a part.

Some parents also alleged emergency exits were closed and locked, or printed banners saying their children were killed "not by a natural disaster but by an unsafe building". (Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Bill Tarrant*)

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