Grief, anger grip Kumbakonam

A relative of a victim of a fire that engulfed a primary school in the southern Indian Tamil Nadu state cries over a grave in a burial ground yesterday in Kumbakonam. PHOTO: AFP

The arrests of the school's headmistress and four other officials came a day after the fire swept through the third-storey thatched-roofed Saraswati Primary School in Kumbakonam on Friday and as anguished parents held funerals for their dead children.

The children were mostly aged between six and 10 years.

District Administrator J Radhakrishnan identified the five arrested as Shantha Lakshmi, headmistress of the school, and two other school managers, the school cook and the organiser of the noon meal centre.

Funerals for most of the children were expected to be held yesterday but some were performed late Friday in Kumbakonam, 350 km from Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu.

"Some of the parents needed strong sedatives. They went into shock when they saw the horribly charred bodies of their little ones," said P. Kumar, a doctor at a state-run hospital which treated some victims.

"Most of them also can't get away from how terrible the end must have been for their children. Now they will have to steel themselves for the last rites."

Newspapers splashed reports of the fire across their front pages Saturday showing grim pictures of the twisted remains of the children lined up for their parents to identify.

"Kitchen fire swallows schoolkids," said The Indian Express newspaper.

About 20 children were still battling for their lives in hospital.

One injured boy, Ramesh, said from hospital that the fire started in the school kitchen which was preparing the noon meals and soon spread.

"Our five teachers fled, leaving us behind," he said, his face contorted in pain.

"My son and daughter were late for school. I forced the guard to unlock the school gate and let them enter ... They would be alive if I had not done this," said a 30-year-old grief-stricken mother who did not want to be identified.

Firefighters said the victims stood no chance of survival as the blazing thatched roof collapsed on the trapped children.

Heaps of bodies, some locked in embrace, were found in the stairwell and classrooms. Tiny shoes and charred school books littered the floor.