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Fri 16 Jul, 2004 12:25 pm
Friday July 16, 8:24 PM
Nearly 80 children killed as fire races through Indian school
Nearly 80 children were burnt to death in a fire that tore through a primary school in India's southern Tamil Nadu state, officials said.
"Seventy-seven bodies have been recovered," senior police official S. Natarajani told AFP from the temple-studded pilgrimage town of Kumbakonam where the blaze broke out at around 11:00 am (0530 GMT).
Thirty-four other children were severely injured in the fire and were admitted to hospital in Kumbakonam, 350 kilometres (220 miles) from Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu, Natarajani said.
Sobbing parents raced to the Saraswati Primary School attended by children aged six to 13 as bodies were removed and the injured were bundled into ambulances.
Television footage showed heaps of bodies, some locked in embrace.
"Parents are howling outside the building, unable to recognise their little ones, as the bodies are being loaded into ambulances," said a housewife living next door to the school.
"It's heart-rending to see these little bodies so horribly charred and twisted being brought out on stretechers," Malathi, who like many Indians uses one name, told AFP by telephone.
The primary school was housed on the third-storey thatched-roof terrace of the Krishna Girls High School.
Some senior students from the floors below tried to save the children but the smoke and flames made it impossible to reach them, Malathi said.
Reports from the scene said some of the children had tried to flee down a narrow stairway. Some suffocated in the stampede.
District administrator J. Radhakrishnan said the fire could have started in the school kitchen where cooks were preparing the noon-day meal or it might have been sparked by an electrical short circuit.
An investigation was under way into the blaze.
Other parents, wailing and beating their breasts, crowded the government hospital where bodies were lined up outside the morgue.
Radhakrishnan said at least 30 children in hospital were suffering from severe burns.
"The injured children are in great pain even though they are under sedation and all efforts are being taken to save their lives," a doctor, who did not wish to be identified, said.
Radhakrishnan said the thatched roof of the junior portion of the school "ignited with great force," trapping the children.
The fire department brought in heavy equipment to smash through walls of the building in an attempt to reach the children.
Police officials said most of the victims were junior students who had been trapped by the blaze but some of the dead may have been teachers.
"The bodies are so badly charred it's difficult to identify the children or their sexes," an official said.
Officials in Madras said medical teams were rushing to the town as local facilities were not adequate to cope with a disaster of such magnitude.
"A team of paramedics and doctors is already on its way," a state health department official said.
"The fire was put out within two hours but the process of relief is still under way," Radhakrishnan said.
The fire was India's worst disaster involving children since December 1995 when 178 school children were among 578 people who died in a blaze that engulfed a community tent during a festival in the northern state of Haryana.
The accident prompted calls for higher fire safety standards at public events and establishments.
But hundreds of thousands of schools and other institutions across India do not even have basic fire-fighting equipment.
India Teachers Accused of Fleeing Fire
India Teachers Accused of Fleeing Fire
Jul 17, 1:51 PM (ET)
By S.SRINIVASAN
KUMBAKONAM, India (AP) - Government officials accused teachers of abandoning students to a fire that turned a crowded, ill-equipped elementary school in southern India into a deathtrap for at least 88 children.
None of the 23 teachers died in the Friday blaze at the private Lord Krishna School, which was packed with about 800 students aged 6-13. Some were in rooms shared by up to six classes at a time.
The fire broke out about 11 a.m. in the kitchen and jumped across the thatched roofs of the three-story school in Kumbakonam, about 200 miles southwest of the southern city of Madras.
Residents started dousing the flames and trying to rescue children. Those efforts were apparently hampered by the school's narrow, steep stairs and few exits. The crowd of volunteer rescuers ended up blocking the main door as they tried to help.
The fire brought down the roof of bamboo logs and coconut leaves onto the children trapped inside. A reporter for New Delhi Television News described marks on the walls that she said showed the children tried to tear through the bricks and concrete in their desperation.
By Friday evening, 45 of the dead had been cremated as is the custom in much of India. Official lowered the number of injured - earlier put at more than 100 - to 22. Eleven of the injured were hospitalized, one in critical condition.
Doctors applied ointment to scalded bodies. Nurses placed large banana leaves - believed to be soothing - on the children's wounds. Parents, many crying, waved bamboo and plastic fans despite the air conditioning to cool inflamed skin. Hundreds more adults waited outside.
Selvam, who uses only one name, cried inconsolably on Saturday as he was unable to find his eight-year-old son studying at the school even 24 hours after the disaster.
Afterward, hundreds of small wooden stools lay toppled on the blackened floor, strewn with rubber slippers, shoes, schoolbags, notebooks, lunch boxes and clothes.
Six blackboards bore traces of the lessons the children were learning. "Fill in the blanks," was written in chalk on one blackboard, asking the students to complete the spellings of words in the local Tamil language.
Police locked the school building as they began investigating the cause of the fire.
The tragedy exposed the downside of India's "economic reforms" program, which saw a proliferation of ill-equipped private schools as the government cut spending on education to curtail its budget deficit.
Most private schools are in crowded buildings that often lack basic safety measures such as fire alarms and sprinkler systems. They rarely have playgrounds, athletic fields or open space.
The principal was arrested, along with his wife and daughter, who helped run the school. Four education department officials were suspended.
Two kitchen workers who were preparing lunch were also arrested and police said they intended to charge the five with criminal negligence.
"This is entirely due to criminal negligence on the part of the school management and the district school authorities," said J. Jayalalithaa, head of government in Tamil Nadu state, where the fire occurred.
The death toll rose to 88 as four more children succumbed to burn injuries at a government hospital overnight, Radhakrishnan told The Associated Press on Saturday.
However, a police officer at a government hospital where the injured were being treated said at least of 90 children had died. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
No teachers died and a senior fire officer said it was because they abandoned the children and ran from the burning school.
"As soon as the fire started, the teachers had escaped, leaving the children behind," the official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It was the local people who saved at least 80 children from the third floor before the roof came down."
But the district government administrator said it was too early to know, noting that about 700 children got out alive - probably helped by teachers.
Many local residents, however, drew their own conclusions as shock and disbelief gave way to anger.
"This was sheer murder," said M. A. Kumar, 35, a street sweeper.
The poor facilities are unacceptable, said
R. Swaminathan, a 30-year-old shopkeeper, said the conditions were unacceptable. "These private schools take a lot of money from parents in the name of building facilities."
In the wake of Friday's fire, the state government has ordered inspection of all schools for compliance of safety norms, Radhakrishnan said.
Thanks, but why do you not post this in the other thread?
Do I sense some jealousy here Thok?
No.
But there is already a thread about this topic, please post there.
A thread started by you? :wink:
Yes, by me. But this has no reference to the case.
OK. You do realize I'm just teasing you right?
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