90 children killed in Indian school inferno

Ninety schoolchildren were killed and scores of suffered severe burns when a majorfire destroyed part ofa primary and secondary school complex in the southern state of Tamil Nadu yesterday.

The fire broke out at 11am on the third floor of the Sri Krishna Middle School complex, which housed the Saraswathi Nursery School in Kumbakonam town in Thanjavur district, 300 km from Chennai.

"The bodies of the others are too charred. We can't even determine their sex. So farthe bodies of 48 children have been identified with the help of the parents," Thanjavur district collector J. Radhakrishan told Gulf News from Kumbakonam.

The condition of 14 boys and 15 girls, most of them with 70 to 80 per cent burns, was still critical.

There were 870 students in the school when the fire broke out in the kitchen. Sparks ignited the thatched roof of the primary school, which housed 190 students studying in the third to fifth grades.

Immediately after the roof caught fire, the teachers managed to escape, leaving the children to fend for themselves.

Even before firefighters could reach the blaze, residentsclimbed to the third floor and managed to rescue 80 children before the burning roof crashed down on the other children.

Seventy children died in the inferno, and others succumbed to their injuries in the Kumbakonam government hospital.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, who rushed to the accident site and then to the hospital, told newsmen: "This is entirely due to the negligence of the school management and the district education officers."

The government suspended three education officials, and police have arrested school principal Pulavar Palanichamy, and charged him with negligence leading to deaths.

Rescue operations were hampered by the building's narrow and steep stairs and firefighters had problems reaching the school through the narrow streets of the town.