School blaze kills 90 children
From Satinder Bindra
CNN New Delhi Bureau Chief
 |  Officers and residents examine the burned remains of the school. |
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 A fire devastates a school in India, killing dozens of children.
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NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- At least 90 children have been killed in a massive fire at a school in southern India, officials said.
The dead included 44 girls and 46 boys, most under the age of 10, officials said.
Forty others were hospitalized, and 30 of those were in critical condition, said officials at Government Hospital in the town of Kumbakonam, where the school was located.
Senior district official J. Radhakrishnan told reporters that five people, including the school principal and the cook, had been arrested.
Authorities are also investigating why no teachers were killed or injured in the fire, Reuters news agency reported.
"Action has been taken as they did not follow fire safety norms," the official said, adding that regulatory authorities were also partly to blame for failing to enforce safety standards, Reuters reported.
One official said the 900 students attending the school in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu may have had difficulty exiting during the fire.
Many of the children were trapped in a large classroom which had only one exit. The roof collapsed on an unknown number of children during the blaze.
Hospital officials said 70 of the children have been identified so far.
Preliminary reports indicate the fire started around 11 a.m. (1:30 a.m. ET) Friday and may have been the result of an electrical short in the kitchen, where lunch was being prepared.
The flames then quickly spread to the thatched roof, which was largely made of leaves and other vegetation. Heavy winds fanned the fire.
The school is a girls' school, but such schools in India often admit boys in the lower grades.
Kumbakonam is about 185 miles (300 km) south of Chennai, formerly Madras, the state capital.
