A fire at a year-end school party in northern India killed at least 365 people Saturday, many of them children and teenagers crushed in a stampede to escape.
Police said about half of the burned and trampled victims were children under 10. Another 142 people were injured in the fire in the market town of Dabwali in the flat farmlands of northern India.Police originally feared as many as 415 people had died and 300 were injured, but after hours of collecting bodies, they set the lower casualty figures early today.
"Just about every family has lost someone," Police Chief Hari Shankar said. "Everyone is in mourning."
The party for the private Dayanand Arya Vedic School, for children ages 5 to 17, drew about 1,000 students and relatives to the community hall and an attached party tent.
A short circuit in the hall apparently ignited a fire, police said. The guest of honor, a local magistrate, saw a spark from the ceiling and yelled "Fire!" authorities said.
Children and adults rushed for the main exit, trampling many before the door. A few people broke down a locked side exit and escaped, Shankar said.
Flames spread across linen bunting to the tent, which collapsed.
Police today were looking for a video, filmed by a partygoer crushed in the stampede, to find clues about the disaster.
Authorities said negligence apparently played a part in the tragedy, and detained the hall manager and several others.
Before dawn today, relatives used flashlights to try to identify family members from the corpses lined up in a hospital courtyard. One woman went from small body to small body, wailing inconsolably as she looked for two daughters and a 2-month-old grandchild.
Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao expressed shock at the tragedy and urged state authorities to do whatever was necessary to help the victims.
Chief Minister Bhajan Lal declared three days of mourning in Hariyana state. Dabwali is in the Sirsa agricultural district in Hariyana, 125 miles northeast of New Delhi. He said a magistrate's court will investigate the fire.
The fire was one of many high-casualty disasters in India, but by no means the largest of even the recent ones.