'Teachers escaped, leaving the children'
84 children die as fire ravages school in south India

Police arrest principal


M. LAKSHMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

KUMBAKONAM, India—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 lessons the children were learning. "Fill in the blanks," was written in chalk on one board, asking the pupils to complete spellings of words in the local Tamil language.

Such was the scene yesterday after flames swept through a thatch-roofed school, trapping dozens of children who clawed at brick and concrete in vain to escape after many of their teachers and fellow students fled. At least 84 children died and 22 were injured.

Most of the dead were 8 to 10, Press Trust of India quoted officials as saying.

Many suffocated on a narrow staircase leading to the ground floor. Others died awaiting treatment at the hospital in this southern Indian river town. Police, blaming officials at the private school for negligence, arrested the principal.

No teachers died, and one senior fire officer said that was because they abandoned the children and ran from the burning school. But the district government administrator said it was too early to know, noting about 700 children got out alive, probably helped by teachers.

More than 30 children survived with burn injuries but about a third of them died awaiting treatment in the local government hospital, screaming in pain or lying unconscious in an emergency ward.

Treating survivors, doctors applied ointment to scalded bodies. Nurses placed large banana leaves — believed soothing — on the children's wounds. Parents, many crying, waved bamboo and plastic fans, desperate to supplement the air conditioning, to cool fire-inflamed skin. Hundreds more adults waited outside in sympathy for the suffering.

The fire started before lunch yesterday in a kitchen and jumped across the flammable roofs of the three-storey school in Kumbakonam, a temple town in a fertile rice-farming delta about 320 kilometres southwest of the southern city of Madras.

Lord Krishna Middle School, serving students age 6 to13, resumed classes in early July after recess during May and June, India's hottest months.

J. Radhakrishnan, the school district administrator, said the fire erupted at 11 a.m. when the building was packed with 800 students in rooms shared by up to six classes at a time.

Local television showed dozens of small, blackened bodies with skeletal limbs laid out on the floor inside a large hall. They were burned beyond recognition, their clothes seared off flaking skin.

"As far as we can make out, the fire started in the kitchen of the school on the ground floor," Radhakrishnan said. "The sparks flying up would have set fire to the thatched roof on the first floor."

By Friday evening, mourners had cremated 45 bodies in mass ceremonies, he said. Several bodies were taken for cremation in nearby villages, where many of the victims lived.

The official lowered the number of wounded from 100 to 22, apparently because some children had only minor injuries.

But the tragedy exposed the downside of India's economic reforms, 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. Rarely do they have playgrounds, athletic fields or open space.

At Lord Krishna Middle School, long, narrow classrooms each had only one exit. On the third floor, the main hall was crowded with students studying because of lack of classroom space.

The fire brought the roof of bamboo logs and coconut leaves down on children trapped inside. A reporter for New Delhi Television News described marks on the walls that she said showed the children tried to tear at bricks and concrete in their desperation.

Police said they had arrested the principal, Pulavar Palanichamy, and intended to charge him with negligence leading to death. Four education department officials were suspended.

"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.

Residents started dousing the flames and trying to rescue children before firefighters arrived, a senior fire department official said, but were 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.

"As soon as the fire started, the teachers had escaped, leaving the children behind," a fire official told Associated Press, 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."

M.B. Venkatesh, who lives nearby, said some children died in the stampede to escape. He said teachers left after opening the front door, usually locked as is customary in Indian schools to keep the young inside.

Radhakrishnan said "it might be farfetched" to say teachers escaped without helping children, when they fled with some 700 pupils.

Police are investigating.
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