Six students were trampled to death at a middle school in eastern China and 39 were injured when a sudden panic caused them to swarm into a staircase, state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
It was unclear what triggered the panic, but the report cited one pupil as saying students fell on top of one another after one of them squatted on the landing to tie his shoelace.
Five girls and one boy, all aged 12 and 13, were killed in the accident, which happened yesterday following an evening class at a school in Duchang County in the province of Jiangxi.
Local authorities were investigating, but the report said they were holding the Tutang Middle School responsible and the principal of the school, which has 50 teachers and 1,600 students, had been detained.
Each family of the students who died was also given 20,000 yuan ($2,500) in compensation, Xinhua reported.
The incident was the latest in a string of school accidents.
Eight children were killed in a similar stampede in October 2005 in a primary school in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The same month, a boy was killed and 64 others injured when part of a staircase collapsed at a primary school in the northwest region of Xinjiang.