50 Killed in Rush Sparked by Fears of Building Collapse
Fifty students died and dozens more were injured today in a stampede prompted by false reports that their school building--still under construction and rumored for months to be unsafe--was about to collapse, hospital officials said.
About 15,000 students of The Monthe College, the city’s second-largest secondary school for students between 12 and 21, panicked after a strange noise was heard in the building, survivors said. A rumor quickly circulated that the six-story building was about to collapse.
The students first ran for the single stairway in the school building, trampling each other in corridors and entrances to the stairs, witnesses said.
Others, unable to approach the stairs, jumped from windows of the building, some to their death, the witnesses said.
An unofficial source said there were at least 150 injuries.
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