INDIA: With a five-year old girl succumbing to burn injuries at the weekend, the death toll caused by Friday's school fire in southern India has risen to 90.
Eighteen children are still in hospital in Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu state where the fire broke out last Friday, with at least one girl who sustained third-degree burns still in a critical condition.
"We are trying to resuscitate her and hope she will pull through," Dr V. Jayaram, who is leading a team of plastic surgeons from Madras, said at the poorly equipped government hospital yesterday.
While 75 of the school's 900 children perished inside the cramped Sri Krishna school after its thatched roof caught fire while the midday meal was being cooked, the remainder died of third-degree burns in hospital soon after. None were more than 10 years old, and all were from poor homes.
None could escape as the narrow staircase leading down the three floors to safety was unusually narrow and jammed with screaming children.
No more than two children could exit from the school's front door, according to some accounts from parents and eyewitnesses, because it was bolted from the outside.
"I buried my eldest 10-year-old son and have now come to identify his brother Anish," sobbed Simon Antonidas, a labourer with a transportation company. "My entire world has collapsed as I have lost both my children."
The cries of distraught parents rang through the temple city of Kumbakonam throughout the weekend as the charred bodies of their children were either cremated or buried in what seemed an endless procession of funerals.
The local authorities had made special arrangements for additional firewood to cope with the emergency as the morgue continued to release children's remains after legal formalities were completed.
"In all my 35 years working in this place, I have never felt so depressed," an employee at the cremation grounds said.
The district authorities, meanwhile, have arrested five people associated with the private but government-aided school, situated in a residential neighbourhood with no safety precautions whatsoever.
The state government has also ordered the closure of scores of schools with thatched roofs and shut down 86 illegal " teaching shops" in the region that were operating illegally. Thatched roofs are common across Tamil Nadu as they are a cheap and quick way to finish buildings, though often with scant regard for safety measures.
Earlier this year, 64 people died at a wedding in the state after the thatched roof of the hall where the main ceremony was being held caught fire.
The many safety measures announced afterwards, including a possible ban on thatched roofs, have been ignored. Many locals feel their tragedy would also soon be forgotten and that similar schools would continue to function once the publicity over the deaths has died down.