Nearly two dozen children were burned to death in Malaysia when their schoolhouse went up in flames on Thursday.
The fire at the Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah religious school broke out early Thursday morning in the sleeping quarters of the building, the BBC reported.
A total of 22 boys between the ages of 13 and 17 perished in the blaze as well as two staff members, bringing the death toll to 25, Malaysian officials told the outlet.
“It is one of the country’s worst fire disasters in the past 20 years,” Khirudin Drahman, director of the fire and rescue department, told AFP.
The young victims were trapped in the dormitory because their windows were bared with metal grilles and they had no other way to escape.
“Based on our initial investigations, the position the victims were found in indicated that they tried to escape through the windows but were stopped due to the fixed grilles on the windows,” fire and rescue department operations deputy director Soiman Jahid said.
The bodies were found “totally burned,” Kuala Lumpur Police chief Amar Singh said.
“Unfortunately, there was only one entrance, so they could not escape. All the bodies were found lumped on one another.”
The children’s desperate screams for help were heard by neighbors, who couldn’t do anything to help once the blaze broke out.
“The children were crying for help, but I couldn’t help them as the door was already on fire,” a neighbor told Reuters, according to the BBC.
Jahid said officials are still investigating the cause of the blaze but believes it was likely caused by a short circuit, or a lit mosquito repellent coil.
A local media report suggested the school could have been operating illegally because its fire safety permit application was still pending.
There have been 29 fire incidents at Tahfiz schools in the country since 2015, causing Malaysian officials to be concerned about the safety measures at unregulated, private religious schools, the BBC reported.
Loga Bala Mohan, a government minister, said the incident should be quickly investigated so officials can be better prepared to “prevent future disasters.”
“We sympathize with the families. It is one of the worst fires involving so many lives in the capital in recent years.”
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