Indian School : At least 100 dead in a fire

At least 75 children were charred to death and over a 100 injured when a fire swept through a private middle school in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district today.

The fire broke out in a common kitchen of the Lord Krishna Middle School and spread to a row of classes with thatched roof.

Nearly 900 students were present in the school at the time of the incident.

The fire totally razed down five classrooms. Several victims died of suffocation as the passage from the classrooms was narrow, preventing their escape.

Some teachers, who made a valiant attempt to rescue the children, were also among the deceased.
Relief operations

Thanjavur District Collector J Radhakrishan, who is camping at the spot along with the range DIG, said the fire had been put off and relief operations were on in full swing.

The injured had been rushed to the Government Hospital and the services of doctors from neighbouring places had been requisitioned to meet the situation.

This is the second major tragedy in the temple town after the death of over 60 people during the 1992 Mahamaham Festival in a stampede.

KUMBAKONAM, India, July 18 (Reuters) - Indian doctors battled on Sunday to save the lives of survivors from a devastating fire in a school in southern India that killed 90 children.

Nearly 20 children are still in hospital, some with severe burn injuries, in the little town of Kumbakonam that has been shrouded in a pall of gloom since Friday's blaze.

"I had two hands. God has saved one, but I have lost the other," cried a mother whose 8-year-old daughter, Suzy Mary, survived though her 10-year-old son died in the fire.

Some children in the government hospital had suffered 30 to 50 percent burns, and one of them was running a fever, senior district official J. Radhakrishnan told Reuters.

Dozens of people marched silently through the town late on Saturday to demonstrate sympathy for the victims' families and to press the state government to act against schools operating from makeshift premises.

They placed garlands and floral wreaths next to the entrance of the burnt shell of the Sri Krishna school while black flags hung from its walls blackened by the fire.

Some walls had gaping holes, made by children trying to escape the fire and by fire officials trying to save them.

Officials said about 700 children in the school at the time had managed to escape.

Angry residents and relatives turned on the teachers at the school, accusing them of having left the building and leaving some of their charges behind.

Security was tight as Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Congress party, is scheduled to visit Kumbakonam, in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, later on Sunday.

The blaze began in a kitchen where lunch was being cooked, and then spread to the school's palm-thatched roof.

Many children were trapped in a large classroom with just one exit, and died after the blazing roof collapsed on top of them to block their way out. Others died of suffocation as they tried to run down narrow staircases.

Newspapers criticised the lack of fire safety arrangements and the fact that cooking was being done beneath a thatched roof.

Tamil Nadu has dozens of schools that operate out of makeshift buildings and have temporary thatch roofs. Few conform to basic building safety and fire standards.

Yes and now Sonia Gandhi promises compensation for the victims. But also compensation, of course, don´t help.

200 schools now are closed, because of security reasons