Six students killed in school stampede

Duan Lixia reads a book at a hospital ward in Jiujiang, East China's Jiangxi Province November 20, 2006. Duan was one of the injured in a fatal stampede at local Tutang Middle School in Duchang on Saturday evening. Six students were killed with 39 injured. Eleven students who were severely injured are out of critical condition, state media said. [Xinhua]

NANCHANG -- Eleven students who were seriously injured in a trampling accident at a middle school in east China's Jiangxi Province were in a stable condition on Monday afternoon, said the local hospital.

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Two of the injured have already been transferred from intensive care units (ICU) to normal units, said Wu Chongjie, assistant president of Jiujiang First People's Hospital.

Wu said three others are still being treated in the ICU, but all are in a stable condition.

In the intensive care units, Liu Yingying -- the most seriously injured child according to the hospital -- was playing with gifts people had brought her; her wardmate Liu Zaozheng was eating his favorite dumplings and Duan Lixia, who sustained stomach injuries in the accident, was reading in bed.

When they were hospitalized early on Sunday morning, the two Lius were comatose and had suffered serious lung injuries.

Wu said that physical treatment was being supplemented by counseling for the injured students.

Six middle school students were trampled to death and 39 others were injured in a stampede which occurred at around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday when hundreds of first-grade students at Tutang Middle School in Duchang County swarmed out of their evening classes and onto the stairway.

Six students, five male and one female aged between 12 and 13, died on their way to hospital. Eleven students are seriously injured.

A first-grade student who witnessed the accident said he saw someone squatting down to tie up his shoelaces on a staircase in the three-storey building. The events that followed are unclear but another student, Jiang Minxu, from a Grade two class, said that more than 100 students fell on top of each other as their momentum carried them forward.

"Teachers quickly climbed from the first floor to the second floor using drainpipes on the outside of the building. They helped the students up one by one," said Jiang.

When the stampede occurred, teachers were correcting students' mid-term exam papers in an office on the first floor of the building. It appears many students were unsupervised in the school, which has 50 teachers for 1,600 students. There are six grade-one classrooms in the building, each packed with about 100 students.

The local government of Jiujiang City appear to be holding the school responsible for the incident. The school principal has been detained by the local authorities and the Jiujiang government held a school safety meeting on Sunday for primary and middle school principals in the area and conducted safety inspections.

Each family of the dead students has been given 20,000 yuan (2,500 U.S. dollars) in compensation and local authorities are trying to establish the exact cause of the accident.

The incident raises further concerns about safety management in Chinese primary and middle schools.

Eight children were killed in a similar stampede that happened in October 2005 in a primary school in southwest China's Sichuan Province, when the students were heading home after evening classes.

Also in October 2005, a boy was killed and 64 other pupils injured in a stampede in a primary school in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, when part of the stairway collapsed.