BANGKOK: Seventeen girls died after a fire swept through the dormitory of a school for children of hill tribes in northern Thailand, officials said Monday, with a survivor describing fleeing as flames engulfed the building.
The fire started late Sunday night, meaning many of the children at the school run by a Christian charity were asleep as flames spread through the two-storey wooden building.
“The fire broke out at 11 pm on Sunday (1600 GMT). Seventeen girls were killed, with five injured,” Colonel Prayad Singsin of the police in the town of Chiang Rai told AFP.
Two of the injured are in a serious condition, he said, but initial fears that two more girls were missing had been discounted after rescuers picked through the charred debris.
The school in Wiang Pa Pao disttrict is home to girls aged between six and 13.
Those in the dormitory on Sunday night were drawn mainly from the deprived local hill tribes, who live too far away to travel to school every day.
