Collapse of school staircase kills 21 children in China

Twenty-one children died in northern China, most of them suffocating under the bodies of classmates, after a school staircase gave way.

Twenty-one children died in northern China, most of them suffocating under the bodies of classmates, after a school staircase gave way.

Police arrested seven people, including the headmaster, his predecessor and the head of a construction company, saying shoddy workmanship might be to blame for the accident. The school in Fengzhen, Inner Mongolia, was built last year.

When the final bell rang on Monday, about 1,500 pupils, aged 12 to 15, rushed out of classrooms and swarmed down a stairwell. The stairs were unlit – hospital sources said there had been a power cut, but local police said the lights had been broken for some time. A guard rail and some stairs gave way, but the children pressed on, unaware of the danger.

Most of the 21 who died suffered respiratory failure. A further 47 were injured.

Many of the survivors were in shock, a doctor said. "The children were frightened and nervous. When we asked them about the accident, they wouldn't say and some could not even remember," he said.

Police said five school officials, a construction company boss and a local government quality inspection chief were being held for questioning.

Chen Jiangming, a regional police spokesman, said: "The main reason for the accident was the poor quality of the guard rails, which gave in before the staircase tilted downwards."

The accident is sure to unnerve the ruling Communist Party as it attempts to present an image of social stability before the 16th Party Congress in November, where the next generation of leaders are expected to be unveiled.

It was another grim reminder of China's appalling public safety record.

In December 2000, a fire killed more than 300 young people in a dance hall in the central city of Luoyang. The same month a year later, five people were killed and more than 90 students were injured when a giant construction crane toppled on to a school building in the western province of Gansu.

China's leaders have embarked on a corruption purge, and are clamping down on careless construction practices and safety procedures. But as the party congress draws near, the propagandists are growing sensitive of news items that appear to demonstrate a deep social malaise.

This month the official Xinhua news agency appeared to censor its own report of a mass poisoning in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Thirty-eight people, mostly children, are believed to have died after eating breakfast laced with rat poison at a busy fast-food store. A man jealous of a business rival confessed to spiking his competitor's food. But Xinhua removed a death toll from its website, leading to complaints of an information vacuum.