At least seven children were killed and 26 others injured Friday after part of the roof and walls of a government-run school collapsed in western India, police said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven children have lost their lives so far and 26 others are injured,\u201d Nand Kishore, a police officer in the state of Rajasthan, told AFP.<\/p>\n
There were around 60 students, teachers and staff members in the single-storey building when the accident happened in Jhalawar district, some 322 kilometres (200 miles) from the state capital Jaipur.<\/p>\n
Kishore said the structure collapsed when students were attending their classes early on Friday.<\/p>\n
Villagers rushed to the site and rescued many injured children who were taken to the closest medical facilities.<\/p>\n
Local media reports said the building was in a dilapidated condition and several complaints had been previously been raised about it.<\/p>\n
It had also been raining heavily in the area over the past few days.<\/p>\n
According to local news outlets, the children who died were between eight and 11 years of age, while two of the injured students were in critical condition.<\/p>\n
Television news footage showed heavy earth movers removing debris and concrete from the site.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was deeply saddened by the tragic incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thoughts are with the affected students and their families in this difficult hour,\u201d Modi said in a statement posted by his office on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cPraying for the speedy recovery of the injured. Authorities are providing all possible assistance to those affected,\u201d the premier added.<\/p>\n
Rajasthan state education minister Madan Dilawar announced that there would be a probe into the cause of the \u201cvery unfortunate\u201d incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will get a high-level inquiry done today to find out why this incident happened,\u201d Dilawar said in a statement.<\/p>\n
He added that local authorities were making \u201carrangements for the treatment\u201d of the injured students.<\/p>\n
Government schools in India face chronic funding shortages, with students complaining of absent teachers, dilapidated buildings, and a lack of basic amenities like clean drinking water or toilets.<\/p>\n
The situation has improved in urban areas in recent years but the pace of change in rural India still remains slow.<\/p>\n
Earlier today, local media had reported that at least four children had been killed and 17 were injured, with dozens still feared trapped under the rubble.<\/p>\n
A local police officer, who declined to be named, told Reuters the school building was old and the roof might have fallen in as a result of heavy rainfall in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were 25-30 children in the room when the roof fell after the morning prayers,\u201d Rajasthan education minister, Madan Dilawar, told AajTak news channel.<\/p>\n
Visuals from news channels showed locals gathered around the site of the collapse. Distressed family members could be heard crying as authorities used a crane to remove the debris.<\/p>\n
Local media reported that 32 students had been pulled out safely, but rescue operations were ongoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstructions have been given to the concerned authorities to ensure proper treatment for the injured children,\u201d Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma said on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least seven children were killed and 26 others injured Friday after part of the roof and walls of a government-run school collapsed in western India, police said. \u201cSeven children have lost their lives so far and 26 others are injured,\u201d Nand Kishore, a police officer in the state of Rajasthan, told AFP. There were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10995,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993\/revisions\/10995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}