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NEW DELHI: Five girls were killed and at least 30 other students injured on Thursday in a stampede at a secondary school in the Indian capital New Delhi, sparking angry protests from distraught parents.
Police and city officials said the crush occurred on a narrow staircase during exam time at the state-run school in the Khajuri Khas district of northeast Delhi.
Students were being transferred from one floor of the building to another when panic broke out, though investigators were unable to say what had sparked the tragedy.
"Some of the children on the first floor were asked to come down and others were asked to go up and apparently the staircase was very narrow," joint police commissioner Dharmendra Kumar said.
"Five girl students were killed in the incident while 32 others were injured."
The dead girls were aged between 12 and 17, hospital staff said, adding that six remained in a critical state with head and spinal injuries.
"This is such a tragedy for which I cannot give an explanation. We deeply regret that five children have died," the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, told reporters after she rushed to the scene.
Dikshit vowed an inquiry would be launched, but she ruled out reports that the panic was triggered by an electric current passing through water collected in the school after heavy rains.
Other reports have suggested the stampede had resulted from examination rooms being changed at the last minute, or after a group of boys entered the girls' classroom.
One student, Sanjana Gautam, 16, told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency that exams were about to start "when suddenly some boys came inside" her classroom.
"They pushed us and then we came out. We were coming down the staircase when the stampede took place," she added.
Outside the school, which educates 4,500 pupils in two shifts, angry parents demanded answers and tried to force their way into the premises before police held them back.
Other parents waited at the local mortuary and hospital.
"I don't know the condition of my daughter. Somebody told me that she has broken her right leg. But there is no word from the authorities," said the mother of one 14-year-old girl, quoted by the PTI.
At the local Guru Tegh Bahadur hospital, medical superintendent O.P. Kalra told AFP that 30 children were being treated including six with serious head and spinal injuries.
"They are in the critical unit," he said.
Most of the fatalities were from head injuries and suffocation.
The government announced compensation of 100,000 rupees (2,000 dollars) for parents of the children who died and lesser sums for those injured.
Stampedes are a common threat in India, though more normally at temples that attract huge, excited crowds packed into tight areas.
More than 200 people died in Jodhpur city last year when 25,000 worshippers rushed to reach a shrine at the hill-top Mehrangarh Fort.
- AFP/sc
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