A dormitory fire in central China’s Henan province killed 13 pupils on Saturday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The fire at the Yingcai School in Yanshanpu village, Henan, was reported to the local fire department at 11:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday, according to Xinhua.
Thirteen kids were reported dead, with one injured.
A teacher at the school informed the state-run Hebei Daily that all of the deceased were from the same third-grade class of nine and ten year olds.
On Saturday evening, AFP journalists observed the area surrounding the school blocked off, with more than a dozen police officers on the site.
The owner of a grocery told AFP that she was asleep when the fire broke out but had heard about the tragedy.
“The kids at the school are definitely mostly living around this area,” she said of the nearby boarding school.
“Our kids don’t go there so we’re not sure about the details,” she added.
Other shopkeepers in the area said they too had gone to bed by the time the deadly fire hit the dormitory.
AFP reporters were blocked from the immediate scene of the inferno, but China National Radio said that some windows of the dormitory building had been smashed.
Quiet and foggy
On Saturday night, AFP journalists observed Yanshanpu hamlet to be quiet and misty, with only a few stores, some unlit buildings, and little traffic on the streets.
There was a strong security presence, with police cars lined a large stretch of Main Street and a few bystanders waiting behind the cordon tape.
One woman told AFP that several of the students’ parents had left them at the boarding school while they worked elsewhere.
According to Xinhua, the flames were extinguished by 11:40 p.m. on Friday.
According to the country’s official news agency, the injured survivor “is currently receiving treatment at the hospital and is in stable condition”.
Local authorities are investigating the cause of the incident, and at least one person associated with the school has been detained, according to Xinhua.
Online anger
Yanshanpu village lies on the outskirts of Nanyang, a city of nearly 10 million.
There is little public information accessible regarding the boarding school, although previous social media videos showed young children, including kindergarteners, wearing smocks with the school’s insignia and older pupils learning calligraphy.
On Saturday, Chinese social media users expressed their fury over the incident and demanded that any safety violations be punished.
“It’s too frightening, 13 children from 13 families, all gone in an instant…” “If there is no severe punishment, their souls will not rest in peace,” one Weibo user said.
Fires and other fatal mishaps are widespread in China, owing to inadequate safety standards and poor enforcement.
In November, a fire at a coal company office in northern China’s Shanxi province killed 26 people and hospitalized scores more.
In July, 11 people were killed when the ceiling of a school gymnasium collapsed in the country’s northeast.
The month before, an explosion at a BBQ restaurant in northeastern China killed 31 people, prompting official promises of a statewide drive to promote worker safety.
In April, a hospital fire in Beijing killed 29 people and drove desperate survivors to jump out of windows for safety.
Following the coal industry incident in November, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the country to “investigate hidden risks in key industries, improve emergency plans, and implement prevention measures.”