Girls killed in India school stampede

Five girls were trampled to death and more than 30 other pupils hurt in a stampede at a school in India today. Five of the 30 are in a critical condition, say doctors. It happened at a state-run high school in the crowded Khajuri Khas area of the capital, New Delhi.

Pupils had been told to move from the first floor to the ground floor through a narrow corridor, according to official reports. They panicked as they thought they could be electrocuted, as the building, with faulty wiring, was waterlogged after heavy rains.

But other reports say the stampede was triggered when a group of girl students, who tried to run down a narrow staircase, collided into a group of boys going up.

"About 40 children were being moved from one section of the school to another," news agency Agence France Presse quoted a local police officer at the Khajuri Khas police station as saying.

The government has already ordered an inquiry into what happened and police have cordoned off the area as a huge crowd of anxious parents and locals gathered outside the school.

New Delhi’s roads were blocked this morning after a night of torrential rain and many children got to school late. An official at the hospital told the BBC that the girls were writing an exam when they were asked to evacuate and that there were 1,300 to 1,400 students in the school at the time. Angry relatives said there were only five or six teachers to evacuate the students.

Stampede deaths have become regular tragedies in India, though it is rare for a school to be involved.