Twenty-one children were killed and 47 injured when a guardrail gave way in a stairwell at a Chinese school during a power blackout, hospital officials said today.
Yesterday's accident at the No. 2 Middle School in the Inner Mongolian city of Fengzhen occurred during a power blackout that struck just as 1,500 young teenagers were heading home after classes.
"When they swarmed down stairs, suddenly the guardrail on the first floor stairs collapsed. Some of the students fell down, but students behind could not see what happened and continued to press forward," one Fengzhen hospital official said.
"Most of them died of respiration failure caused by lack of oxygen as they toppled onto one another in the dark," the official said.
Others plunged three to four metres into the stairwell of the three-storey school built less than two years ago, he said.
The officials said some of the 47 injured students sustained fractures, but none appeared to be critically hurt.