India Teachers Accused of Fleeing Fire

[hightime]

KUMBAKONAM, India (AP) - Government officials accused teachers of abandoning students to a fire that turned a crowded, ill-equipped elementary school in southern India into a deathtrap for at least 88 children.

None of the 23 teachers died in the Friday blaze at the private Lord Krishna School, which was packed with about 800 students aged 6-13. Some were in rooms shared by up to six classes at a time.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040717/D83SME7O0.html

[AngryAmish]

1. cowards

[Skittles]

2. I absolutely agree

there is no way I would leave a child in a burning building; I wouldn't consider my life worth living if I was such a freaking coward. I would have been tossing them out the windows until I succumbed.

[AngryAmish]

3. Ever hear of the Queen of Angels fire in Chicago?

In the fifties a big Catholic grade school burned and lots of kids died. While there was plenty of blame for making that building such a firetrap, at least the nuns didn't run away while the kids burned.

[TahitiNut]

4. 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School Fire

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/ourladyfire.html

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/ourlady_fire.html

On December 1, 1958 sometime after 2:00 p.m., a fire started in a trash drum in the basement stairwell of the Our Lady of Angels school, 909 N. Avers. At approximately 2:40 p.m. the first still and box alarms were called in. Engine 85 arrived at 2:44 p.m. By then, the fire had burned undetected for at least 20 minutes.

The fire was brought under control at 3:45 p.m. and the work of recovering bodies began. Ninety students and three nuns died. One hundred sixty children were saved.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. I was in third grade when that happened, and

we lived only 90 miles out of Chicago, so it was practically local news.

Almost the whole eighth grade class died, because they were trapped on the top floor. I believe the only survivors were the ones who jumped, and even some of them were scarred for life.

It was a pretty traumatic news story for us schoolchildren, and for a long time, we talked about it in whispers and half-freaked every time the fire drill alarm rang.

[fujiyama]

6. Me too

What disgusting behavior.

This is just so terrible. The conditions of these schools are just appaling. They have no facilities. I read an article that showed that many of the public schools in rural India don't even have toilets. Corruption is also very rampant, so any laws that are on the books are not enforced in any way.

These are just some of the many problems the new government of India has to deal with. I hope they are successful in dealing with them.