23 killed in Koran school fire
KUALA LUMPUR: A blaze at an Islamic boarding school in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, killed at least 23 people yesterday, most of them teenage boys who cried for help from barred windows, officials and witnesses said.
Firemen said the fire broke out around 5.40am in a topfloor dormitory in the threestorey building, where most of the pupils, aged between 13 and 17, were sleeping in bunk beds, with many of the windows covered by metal grilles.
Two teachers were also killed in the fire at the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah. Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation.
The disaster has renewed calls for greater scrutiny of socalled ‘‘tahfiz’’ schools, where pupils learn to memorise the Koran. They are unregulated by the education ministry, being the responsibility of the religious department.
At least 30 fires at such schools have been reported this year, Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Noh Omar told reporters, adding that the Kuala Lumpur school should not have been open. He did not elaborate on the previous fires.
Fire department operations deputy director Soiman Jahid said officials were investigating the fire but it was likely caused by a short circuit or a mosquito repellent coil.
The dormitory had only one entrance, leaving many of the victims trapped, he said. At least one window was unbarred.
‘‘The building was surrounded by metal grilles that could not be opened from the inside. The students, after realising the fire and heavy smoke, tried to escape through the window,’’ Soiman said outside the school.
‘‘But because of the grilles, they could not escape.’’
Soiman said the school had submitted a request for fire safety approval but no new checks had been carried out yet.
‘‘The pupils all got locked in and they couldn’t escape and got burnt,’’ Nadia Azalan, sister of a 13yearold victim, told Reuters in tears as distraught family members gathered outside the building. ‘‘Safety should come first.’’
A man identified only as Hazin, who lived next door to the school, said his son called the fire department after they heard screams and saw the flames.
‘‘The children were crying for help, but I couldn’t help them as the door was already on fire,’’ he told Reuters.
‘‘I only managed to save a few of the kids who jumped out the window.’’
Mohd Izzarudin Roslan (15) said he had broken a window and climbed out on to a water pipe.
Only eight of the boys managed to get out, he said.
‘‘A few of my friends fell; there were some who had fire on their hair and clothes,’’ he said in a video posted online by the New Straits Times, an Englishlanguage daily.
Viewed from outside, the only telltale signs of disaster were the blackened upperfloor windows. Otherwise the tinroofed building appeared unscathed, with a Malaysian flag hanging limply from the yellow wall.
Only inside did the intensity of the inferno become clear. The dormitory was blackened, lined with the charred frames of bunk beds.
Tahfiz schools have been under scrutiny since earlier this year when an 11yearold boy died after reported abuse in Johor, north of Singapore.—