At least 10 children died and 45 were injured, five of them seriously, in a stampede at a primary school in south-western China’s Sichuan province, state media said on Wednesday.
The stampede started when children panicked as they were going down a dark stairwell to leave the school on Tuesday evening in Guangna town in Tongjiang county.
The semi-official China News Service said eight children died and 45 were injured, but national radio said the death toll had reached 10.
The five seriously injured children were under hospital treatment for injuries caused by crushing, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the school’s deputy head teacher as saying.
According to other reports, the panic was started by one of the children shouting ”Ghosts!” after the lights went out suddenly, prompting students to rush down the stairs and fall over one another.
The children were in the fourth grade, which would typically make them about 10 years old.
The deputy head of the Tongjiang county government said the accident was not caused by any collapse of the banister or other part of the school building, which was opened last year.
Officials are investigating the cause of the accident, the agency said. — Sapa-DPA