INDIA: The 86 children who perished yesterday in a fire which raged through their school in India's southern Damil Nabu state, never stood a chance, reports Rahul Bedi, from Kumbakonam, southern India
Within minutes of the flaming thatched roof on their Sri Krishna school in Kumbakonam, 350 km south of the State capital, Madras, falling on them, they were human torches, screaming like banshees and scampering around their cramped, makeshift classroom.
Almost immediately it was all over for them.
Forty-six of the dead were girls, the remaining 40 boys.
None of them was over 10 years of age and all came from poor families with incomes barely above the poverty line.
Another 25 children, mostly girls, suffered third-degree burns and are in a critical condition at the local government hospital. Their tiny naked bodies are covered with large plantain leaves to keep them cool.
"My four-year-old daughter may have survived the fire, but she is unlikely to live," moaned Ari Vinbam, a casual labourer.
"I only wanted to give her what I never had - education - and look at the way God paid me back," he added disconsolately.
The overburdened, under-resourced and ill-equipped hospital struggled to cope with the burnt children, many of whom were screaming in agony as their families looked helplessly on.
Bodies wrapped in coarse white sheets continued to be brought into the hospital morgue on stretchers until late last night, hours after the fire erupted.
Stony-faced, a father quietly pushed the stretcher bearing the body of his five-year old son as hundreds of people thronging the hospital compound silently made way for him. He seemed oblivious of the crowd around him and the bank of television cameras which photographed his grim journey.
Groups of overwrought and wailing parents sat around in the hospital, waiting to be handed over their children's remains following the completion of legal formalities. At sunrise, they would ironically cremate them in accordance with Hindu rites.
"There is little left of my five-year-old Rosa to cremate," wailed Sarina, who works at the local courts. "The school fire has consumed my son, his name is Balu," Shivaram said, "but I must put his soul at rest."
The fire started at about 11 a.m., while the free midday meal was being cooked.
Once the flames spread through at least four classrooms, which were under thatch, bedlam broke loose as nearly 900 children crammed into the school's three narrow floors attempting to flee. However they found themselves hemmed in on all sides by a terrified crowd trying frantically to rush through the narrow exit, which was also the way to the safety of the street outside.
This passageway was one through which barely two children could pass comfortably under normal circumstances.
"It's a miracle that more children were not victims," Radha Krishna, the district's most senior official said.
The privately run but government-aided school was located in a residential neighbourhood with no safety precautions, not even a bare pretence at any. Like hundreds of schools in the city, indeed across the country, the driving motivation for its owners was profit.
The district authorities have suspended four education department officials and ordered an investigation into accident.
The state government has also announced payment of 100,000 rupees (€2,000) each to the families of the deceased and 25,000 rupees (€500) each to those injured.
Local officials have conceded that little will come of the investigation which could take years to complete and with no one eventually held accountable. That the victims were from poor families will make it even more improbable for anything substantial to emerge from the inquiry and similar schools shut down.
Meanwhile, the temple town of Kumbakonam mourned its dead by closing down all shops and business establishments for the day. The normally bustling city wore a deserted look as residents walked either to the hospital to commiserate with the bereaved parents or to ring temple bells summoning Hindu gods and asking for the children's salvation.
"It's such a horrible waste," Srinivasan, a local journalist, said woefully.