SUVA, Fiji (AP) -- Trapped by a bolted door and mesh-covered windows, 18 teenage girls and their supervisor died when a fire swept through a high school dormitory in the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, officials said today.
The fire broke out Thursday night in the Toalipi Girls dormitory at the Motufoua Secondary School, the tiny island nation's largest school with about 300 students, both boys and girls.The fire was believed to have been caused by a student's candle that sparked an inferno in the girls' sleeping quarters -- a very old wooden building. Its single door had been fastened shut and its open windows were covered with wire mesh.
The dorm supervisor died trying to rescue the girls, aged 14 to 17, Radio Tuvalu reporter Diana Semi told Australia's National Nine News.
"The girls were in the dormitory, were trying to escape from the fire but could not because all the doors were locked," Semi said.
A government spokesman told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio that 18 girls had escaped the flames by smashing down a door.
The government said it was starting an investigation into the blaze.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Ionatana Ionatana announced the tragedy today in an address on Radio Tuvalu and offered his condolences to the nation.
He then set off for the six-hour boat trip to the remote coral atoll of Vaitupu to assess the damage and attend a mass burial of the victims.
People are generally buried within 12 hours of dying in many areas of the South Pacific, where there are high temperatures and little refrigeration.
A spokesman for the prime minister's office also said the bodies were burned beyond recognition and could not be returned to the girls' parents.
Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a nation of 9,500 people on nine coral atolls with a total area of just 10 square miles. It is 620 miles north of Fiji.
The islands achieved independence from Britain in 1978.